See other Pious Perverts Articles
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: 23396
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. 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
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Minerva (#0)
Ignore him to death and he'll fade away like a bad fart.
"First I'm gonna bother everybody I meet, and then I'll probably go home and get drunk."
kooks like this kind of stuff. it's easier for them than making sense.
"And this is the end of my brilliant career on the 4um..." -- ponchy 12/20/2006
We should just say that he holds the site record and then post a dead link in support. Beachy would be proud.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
no, you need to post a link selling magazine supscriptions. that's what beachy does when he doesn't have a source.
"And this is the end of my brilliant career on the 4um..." -- ponchy 12/20/2006
BAC is the guy on the left. BAC has provided facts confirming that this is his picture.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Ron Brown himself probably has Beachy on bozo.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.
the facts are as follows. the allies bombed Dresden during WW2. therefore, the John Hopkins study projecting that 650,000 Iraqis died as a result of the invasion is false. and it follows logically that ron brown has put BAC on bozo. BAC only deals in facts. this is what he's said, this is what's true. I will NEVER put BAC on bozo - NEVER!!!! he's the most entertaining person here.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
But isn't BAC a special case?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
yes bac is a special case, we won't do it to anyone else. promise.
"And this is the end of my brilliant career on the 4um..." -- ponchy 12/20/2006
Wow, he comes in a special koOk action case? Does he com with batteries too? ;-D
Yep, if he was a movie he'd be called 'Bac to the Futile.'
we want him to do his ron brown impersonation for us. so far he has been holding out.
"And this is the end of my brilliant career on the 4um..." -- ponchy 12/20/2006
maybe this will inspire him: This is Bill Clinton arriving at the funeral of one of his fundraiser stooges, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. You can see him laughing it up with his buddy Tony Campolo as they're walking towards the funeral service, but then Slick Willy catches the camera and starts tearing up. Pretty good acting job. ...
lol!
"1928, Wilhelm Ackermann observed that A(x,y,z), the z-fold iterated exponentiation of x with y, is an example of a recursive function which is not primitive recursive."
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.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
I think BAC may have put me on bozo! and I really miss the intellectual discussions that I had with that guy!
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I don't use the bozo filter, Red. But I do ignore certain posts.
He should go to DU, it's a larger forum and he could feed his ego more, though they'd probably throw him off really quick. I can see why Goldi finally got tired of his nonsense and dishonesty. He's a bad egg.
That was pretty funny, and he even tried to spin that mistake.
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.
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.
God is always good! He's too self-assured, and that is what gets him trapped. I think lurkers can easily see how he spins and bobs and weaves and will not debate honestly. It's almost like a 3 yr old trying to lie to his parents thinking he will get away with it. So I think most lurkers are smart enough to catch onto that, plus it's obvious he has a very difficult time getting along with others. His behavior speaks for itself, loud and clear.
BAC has provided facts confirming that this is his picture. Ah so he does have an after-hours WH pass.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act - - George Orwell 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.
Les Roberts Answers Your Questions Juan Cole: 655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion 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? 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 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.
eeww.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
I'm not bothered by so many FD4UMers using the bozo filter, Destro. It says much more about them, than me.
Diana, you forgot to mention that you said this: to explain away the discrepancy of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and missing news reports. Now since you appear to be denying that you believe large numbers of US soldiers were involved in this massive genocide and coverup (which, by the way, involves more than twice the dead Saddam is accused of putting in mass graves ... which they have found by the hundreds), perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us who you think did carry it out and how they managed to keep it secret from the hundreds of thousands of US soldiers who are in and have been to Iraq so far during this war? Will you answer or have you bozo'd yourself, too? ROTFLOL!
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.
That sounds just like him, that's exactly what he does. That's why as Red Jones said it's impossible to win an argument with him.
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. This has to be some sort of stunt to get me to answer because otherwise it would imply........ You're NUTS!! What do you think I wrote above ?? Just that!
I have only '0' bozos on my account, but I am not very active at this site. I have 6 at LP but I used to have 12 or 14 at one time.
Antiparty - find out why, think about 'how'
Referrring to what I posted in post #25 and again just now, I will play you. I never referred to any nation, any army in that post. Actually, I was talking about the Armenian genocide where many innocent civilians were killed and their bodies disposed of. Untold thousands died at the hands of the Turks. Again, I'm surprised you're not aware of this practice, which occurs in ALL wars.
Then he should be easy to debunk.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
It doesn't quite work that way when he switches facts for falsehoods and vice versa, leaves some facts out altogether and twists and weaves until the opponent throws their hands up in the air in dispair. If he were on the up and up your statement would be true.
You are mistaken Destro. BAC has never lost an argument.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
In addition to that, as poster ... points out, he pulls facts that don't exist out of dark places.
And never will.
Neither he nor you are here to have legitimate discussion. Your agendas are quite simply to disrupt any cogent thread with your nonsense. Why bother debunking nonsense. Until you and the others are bozoed and eventually banned, you are being very effective, especially for lurkers and newcomers.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
Really, Diana, you need to read complete sentences before responding. Here is the rest of the sentence you partially quoted ... the part you forgot to mention to your readers and then again ignored in your response to my complaint. "to explain away the discrepancy of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and missing news reports."
BAC has provided facts confirming that this is his picture. I've long accused BAC of being queer; but that's disgusting. Where did BAC confirm that's his picture?
So do you think that's an explanation why some 600,000 bodies, death certificates and news reports are missing in this war? Do you think someone is out there disposing of the bodies after our soldiers kill them, Diana? If so, who is this someone? How many someone's are there? And how have our soldiers failed to notice what's going on?
Picking on the ladies, again, eh BAC? Is that part of your "queer" agenda?
Oh, is that what this thread is? A cogent thread? ROTFLOL!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN! Then again...perhaps that's the 'agenda'.
I would like to know how you got all this information, all this insight, all these "facts" in this post of yours: "Actually I simply asked her questions. She tried to explain away the fact that there is NO physical evidence to support the allegation that 655,000 Iraqis were killed in Iraq through July of last year by stating "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." Now maybe you don't see that as assertion that our soldiers must be involved in covering up the bulk of that death but I think most people will. And I think most will understand my logic in suggesting it would take quite a few soldiers to hide all that evidence and keep reporters away. And soldiers being soldiers, I think most will agree that by now all soldiers in Iraq would know this is going on. In which case, they must be keeping it quiet. Which can only make them accessories to the crime. Right? She certainly implied someone connected to our government is doing the burying. If not our soldiers, WHO? And how could anyone hide what they were doing from our soldiers? Sorry, but I think it is highly illogical to believe that this scale of attrocity (which, by the way, it greater than the one Saddam was accused of) is going on without our soldiers being aware of it and therefore complicit." from this short post of mine: "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." I would appreciate an explanation of how you derived all these "facts", these interpretations, from my short post above, thanks.
Because you didn't post what you posted in isolation. You posted in response to my assertion that 600,000 or so bodies, death certificates and eyewitnesses are missing. You posted that as a way of explaining those away. Now if you are not implying that someone in Iraq is quietly disposing of hundreds of thousands of bodies, just say so Diana, and I will be happy to apologize for misinterpreting your remarks.
bob and weave and duck.....
Let's just see who is bobbing and weaving ... If you are not suggesting that someone in Iraq has disposed of half a million or more bodies without any record of doing so, just say so Diana, and I will be happy to apologize for misinterpreting your remarks.
My statement does not take any sides either way. I come out against this cliquish almost Freerepublic like behavior.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
We/I am?? Then provide an example of such disruption - stating an opinion you guys don't like does not equal disruption.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
Chickens coming home to roost on America when America used to champion using this kind of quasi statistic gathering when she wanted to show Serbia as being genocidal monsters. I like that America is now made to answer using the same kind of procedure gathering for the numbers. This is not a defense for American policy in Iraq which I am against and detest.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
I already bothered to provide an example. One you denied. No more time shall be wasted on your posts.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
"to explain away the discrepancy of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and missing news reports." I never said that, ever. Please find where I actually posted "to explain away the discrepency of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and the missing news reports" I don't recall ever having said that, and it doesn't even sound like language I would use. Are you making up falsehoods here? I would appreicate if you find and document where I said that, perhaps it would refresh my memory. And please don't come back with some lame brain reason why you won't do it, since you are now accusing me of something I never even said, unless I said it a long time ago and don't remember it, but I highly doubt that. So proof please, in order to boost your own credibility.
Partially quoted? Is this some new trick term you thought up?
Isn't it defamation of character to attribute false quotes to people? And I'm still waiting for your explanation of what a "partial quote" is. Your imagination ran wild with that one post I made to you that I've had to quote back several times. Are you delusional perhaps? Do you hear voices that tell you things?
Again, this is the entire post I wrote where you have pulled out all sorts of meanings and interpretations including my saying a mass genocide and cover up is taking place by our US govt. This is my entire quote that you have been monkeying around with, in it's entirety. And there are no "partial quotes" in it. So, for like the tenth time, here it is, again: "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."
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN! Then again...perhaps that's the 'agenda'. come on, guys...back and forth sniping happens on all forums. board content and posts vary hour to hour depending on the individuals online and the articles and threads they're interested in posting to. this particular thread was posted by one person here. it doesn't set the tone or agenda for the entire forum forever and ever. sheesh. i guess i could be an ogress and start deleting all snipes. ;)
Di, dear lady, just tell the bastard to go fuck himself and get it over with! Being the nice sweet lady you are makes this turd-faced jerkoff bolder.
********************* 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 Reading no farther than the first few lines, you already make a misleading statement, implying that Cole's numbers have no basis. To give an idea of the lack of coverage of daily death statistics, Cole cites an example in Basra where the Iraqi governmente stated that one person each hour was assasinated for politcial reasons in that city. None of these made the news. That gives 24 unreported people just for political reasons in one day alone in one city alone. And Basra wasn't and isn't considered a particularly violent city. When you extend the lack of reporting about daily deaths in Basra, across the entire country and its 36 million population, you have an environment where hundreds of people could easily disappear without any major media noticing. Cole is proving his point quite well - and Cole has actually been to Iraq, unlike you. He just isn't offering proof in a way that you've set up in your own little world. All I can say is, life goes on without you.
Are you referring to BushCo? I know they're not in Iraq but their military is.
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. And since we've been over this many times already, you are intentionally trying to deceive and mislead.
Do I hear crickets?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
No, you never said that, but why else would you post me what you did in response to my assertion that 600,000 or more bodies, death certificates, news reports must be missing if the John Hopkins' estimate is correct? So let me ask you again, If you were not suggesting that someone in Iraq has disposed of half a million or more bodies without any record of doing so, then just say so, and I will be happy to apologize for misinterpreting your remarks.
Why don't you quote the entire post you responded to, Diana?
rowdee, you are such a gentleman. The ladies must love you.
They don't. At least not an honest one. For all the reasons mentioned. Now the fact that John Hopkins estimate that Cole chooses to champion happens to be an order of magnitude different than half a dozen other estimates probably should have been a clue to Cole (and you) that something is amiss. Are the folks in Basra somehow different than the folks surveyed by John Hopkins for their study? Because in the study samples (supposedly random), 92 percent of those who claimed deaths were able to provide death certificates presumably issued by a hospital, morgue or the health ministry. But when the LA Times (not a friend of the war or Bush) went to Basra to count the death certificates issued by those organizations, they didn't find the number of deaths you and John Hopkins suggest. They found perhaps a tenth that number. So are the folks in Basra different than the folks selected *randomly* by John Hopkins to represent the folks in Basra? Hmmmmmmm? Are you sure you can believe Cole? Did he provide a source to this claim? Do you know for a fact that the official in Basra said what he claimed? Can you prove that the deaths he claims were not reported to the authorities and counted? Can you prove death certificates weren't issued for those deaths? Here is another side of that claim: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12892865/site/newsweek "According to the local independent daily Al-Zaman, Shia-on-Shia murders are taking place at the rate of one per hour. (British sources dispute that, saying the city has averaged about 100 murders a month.)" Also, did you notice it is Shia-on-Shia murders? I thought the anti-war crowd has been claiming sectarian violence is the problem? I thought the Shia community was this monolith that is going to side with Iran?
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. 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?
come on, guys...back and forth sniping happens on all forums It's beyond back and forth sniping and is now just a waste of unreadable posts and nonsense. That's what shills do to threads and eventually to forums. Look at LF.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
Let's see if you have answers to my questions?
BAC's posts have always been that way. Some think BAC is a paid shill. I don't think so myself. I think he's just psychotic and with less than average intelligence & talent. I don't think he has the talent to make clear posts that convince anyone. I think he genuinely believes that the mainstream media is always right and anyone who challenges it is a dangerous kook. he's trying to save the world from dangerous kooks.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
17. Change the subject...This works especially well with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues. 4) Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
Eat Worms, BAC! You're an intellectual parasite. Wherever you've gone, you contribute nothing of value.
I yield - you win.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I think he genuinely believes that the mainstream media is always right and anyone who challenges it is a dangerous kook. he's trying to save the world from dangerous kooks. Low intellect, psychotic, no talent..paranoid..delusions of grandeur [save the world from kooks] and perhaps, "sexually disoriented" = Chimp = Insane.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act - - George Orwell It certainly does. The people who did the John Hopkins survey actually went out into Iraq, went to a diverse collection of sites, and risked their lives in the process. The other people are like you, where if they even go to Iraq they stay behind the Green Zone and compile news reports from other people who also stay behind the Green Zone. Now to compare apples to apples, tell me how the John Hopkins' study compares to another study that also had people going house to house in Iraq and taking a survey. When you get to that, tell me why you keep harping on "Where are the bodies," when a 655,000 death count + or - the confidence range would mean an average of 4 bodies per day in 89 regions throughout 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? No I don't. That is arm-waving and speculation on your part. 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.
So did this group http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-%20English.pdf from the UN Development Program. In a much larger study than John Hopkins', they only found 24,000 war-related deaths at a time when John Hopkins was claiming 98,000. The UN used similar techniques - clusters, etc. So perhaps the difference is that they didn't hire folks to conduct the study who (according to Les Roberts) HATED Americans and the researchers weren't trying to influence a US election against Bush. You know nothing about me. Asked and answered. Now it's your turn. Tell us how a study that claims its random sample is representative of the country at large could have 92 percent of those claiming deaths provide a death certificate as proof when various mosques, hospitals and bureaucracies that issue death certificates can't (according to the LA Times) locate even 10 percent of the deaths the John Hopkins' study claimed? This should have been another sign to Cole (and you) that something is terribly amiss. By the way ... did you ever find the source of Cole's claim about the deaths in Basra? No? Did you ever confirm that those deaths weren't reported to authorities or that death certificates weren't issued in those cases? No? Did you ever confirm those deaths weren't counted in the estimates put out by such organizations as IraqBodyCount? No? Did you ever find out why the British said the death toll was closer to 100 a month than 1 an hour? No?
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! 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! 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". 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.
Your "group's" report consists of the following sections Chapter two describes and analyses the characteristics of the Iraqi population. Chapter three discusses the findings on nutritional status and child health. Chapter four describes the ILCS findings on coverage of reproductive health services and birth history. Chapter five focuses on the general health situation of the Iraqi population and their access to health services. Chapter six considers the supply, demand, and quality of education in Iraq. Chapter seven presents an analysis of the present living condition of Iraqi women You believe I know nothing about you. That does not mean I don't know anything about you, Emperor. Spamming a 178 page report is not answering. Irrelevant. Bureaucracies tracking or not tracking death certificates they issue, does not equate to people receiving or not receiving said death certificates. The LA Times said the agencies could not provide summaries of these certificates, not that they did not issue any more than 50,000. Cole was there and knows people there. You weren't, and don't.
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. 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. 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? 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. Not during the first year in Mosul and Kirkuk. There is also Anbar province and possibly Basra which are worse. 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. 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.
Did you look for the chapter titled "War-Related deaths - between 18,000 and 29,000." In Orange type. It's on page 54 (or 53 or 55 depending on how you interpret the numbering). That chapter says "The ILCS data has been derived from a question posed to households concerning missing and dead persons during the two years prior to the survey." And the study was based on much larger sample than the John's Hopkins' study. So that's going to be your *excuse*? That Iraq's morgues, hospitals, etc actually issued 655,000 death certificates but failed to write down the fact that they had or record any other information about the dead? ROTFLOL! Do you know how absolutely lame that sounds? ROTFLOL! But at least I was able to URL a source which discussed this rather than just claimed it. And how often have Iraqi defense ministers said something which later turned out to be untrue? (sarcasm) And noted that British authorities disputed that claim. And it didn't say anything about the claim being that one per hour had been killed for the last year as Cole claimed. I tell you what ... let's look at some more sources. From May 2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article485489.ece "Majid al-Sari, an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, describing the situation in Basra to the daily al-Zaman, said that on average one person was being assassinated every hour." Well at least now we know the real source of the claim. And according to the article "Tribes who once lived in the marshlands outside Basra are engaged in constant feuds with other tribes." So the violence is Shia on Shia. Gee ... I thought you folks have been saying the Shia are a monolith aligned with Iran. But do we find any other articles about this? No. All the sources I found repeat the same Patrick Cockburn article. I couldn't find the original al-Zaman article. If you can, I'd love to see it. But let's assume that Cockburn was only quoting that article. Can we trust al-Zaman, http://(www.azzaman.com? None other than Juan Cole provides us with this (http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/al-zaman-good-riddance-to-rumsfeld.html ) from the editorial staff at al-Zaman. It's in regards to the resignation of Rumsfeld. "Everyone should read the signs of joy in Iraq after the announcement of the departure of a politician whose name is linked to the most heinous crimes, which began with the scandal of Abu Ghraib prison and ended with his unleashing of death squads and criminals to disrupt the security of Iraq. His crimes also included dissolving one of the oldest armies in the region, for the most part made up of brave patriots, as a preparation for the partition and tearing apart of Iraq. That's not exactly a fair representation of the facts in my opinion. A bit of an exaggeration ... wouldn't you say? And I found this from October 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/10/e0f5ff85-f2a0-4fa5-9a31-0035ae7d5198.html "While violence continues to take a toll on Iraqi journalists, actions by the Iraqi government are seen as trying to stifle press freedoms. Parliament urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on October 16 to shut down the Al- Sharqiyah news channel and "Al-Zaman" newspaper after what it described as their negative coverage of a recent draft law the parliament passed on turning Iraq into a federal state. The outlets warned that the law could lead to the disintegration of Iraq on ethnic and sectarian grounds, "Al-Zaman reported on October 17." I suppose they meant the Shia on Shia murders that it's claimed are occurring in Basra at the rate of one an hour? (By the way, I'm certainly against al-Zaman being shut down and I'm willing to assume they did a fair reporting of the story in question). So what do we know about the Majid al-Sari? He's quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying "[Iran] wants to promote its own brand of theocracy, especially among Iraq's Shia population, and yet make sure that Iraq remains weak," said Majid al-Sari, a senior adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Defense. "They don't want too much instability in Iraq. Just a little." The article goes on to say that "Iranian cash is being funneled to an array of armed Shiite groups in the city, partly to tie down coalition military forces, and partly to keep any one militia from consolidating power, said a military analyst familiar with the tense situation in Basra." So perhaps this violence is actually just part of the wider, ongoing, undeclared war with the terrorist sponsoring state of Iran? Perhaps the solution is not to withdraw precipitously from Iraq but take the war to Iran. And here's one last comment concerning conditions in Basra in 2007, a year later. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6373087.stm "Tony Blair has said the operation to allow Iraqis to take the lead in frontline security in Basra had been "completed" and "successful". ... snip ... He said the situation was different in the two different areas, with no Sunni insurgency or al-Qaeda suicide attacks in the Basra area. He also said sectarian violence in Basra had fallen "enormously", and the number of murders had fallen to 30 in December. ... snip ... "Of course I am devastated by the numbers of people who have died in Iraq, but it's not British and American troops that are killing them. They are being killed by people who are deliberately using terrorism to try to stop the country getting on its feet."
Good Lord, BAC, your buddy Boy George went in with a War Crime invasion and occupation - and the locals aren't supposed to fight back, with every possible resource they can muster? Is that your definition of 'righteous?' C'mon, BAC - you can tell us.
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! Reputable? ROTFLOL! Do you know why they call it the LASlime? 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 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 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? Probably never...
For the sake of argument, BAC - does the smaller of the number of civilian deaths take away the American War Crimes which produced them. C'mon, BAC; you can tell us.
Given the stated purpose of the survey, any questions about missing and dead persons were quite secondary to that stated purpose. Since the survey's purpose was not to track the excess deaths, but instead try to measure the overall quality of living conditions, it should not be relied upon to give an estimate of the excess deaths. Clearly you don't understand the meaning of "Serious lapses in recording deaths," and "Continued spotty reporting," and "Unable to compile the data," And your URL isn't someone "claiming" it who just happened to take the trouble to put it onto the Internet? More irrelevant remarks. As the occupying power, the United States is responsible for the security of the country, period. This means protecting the people from criminals and violence of all forms. Many people within the US and even within the military warned against exactly this type of chaos. The Administration ignored them. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that statement, and if you do, it is yet more proof of your moral depravity. Not in the least.
Bidding starts at 1 euro for an 8-track with a cult following.
sometimes there just aren't enough belgians
Clearly you don't understand the meaning of "Serious lapses in recording deaths," and "Continued spotty reporting," and "Unable to compile the data," 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.* 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.* 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. 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...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 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.
Blue Oyster Cult - "Don't Fear the Reaper?"
well done. i like your ending paragraph summation.
they had become like they are fluff...I'm not they! helter skelter.. :)
sometimes there just aren't enough belgians
I hope I die before I get old? I don't trust anyone!
sometimes there just aren't enough belgians
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 of the number of death certificates that should exist in the general population if that 92 percent figure is to be believed. By Patrick Cockburn, AGAIN? What a coincidence. And I don't see anything in that article disputing the difference pointed out between the two areas or the statement by Blair that deaths per month in the region are way down from the CLAIM of one per hour.
"And you fancy yourself a *debater*." You don't even understand what I said, AGAviator. 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". 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. Simply put, chaos in the first year cannot explain the missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist if the John Hopkins claim that 92 percent of those claiming deaths were able to provide death certificates is to be believed. 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. 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. 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. You must be really comfortable in the ME because your arguments shift just like the desert sands. ROTFLOL!
By the way ... this is another bit of misinformation. Shall we discuss that topic too?
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. "Nobody is dying in Iraq because the media hates Bush" AGAIN? No I didn't. That is just one of several factors, which I have set out many times. 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. 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. The insurgency does not play by your rules. If you want them to, become a jihadist, go join them, and tell them to! ROTFLOL!!! Nobody said 28,000 except you. I'm saying 4 bodies per day x 89 municipalities plus Baghdad. 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 And you would allege "we are winning?" ROTFLOL yourself!!! Furthermore, continuing the same And you would allege "we are winning?" ROTFLOL yourself!!! No, that would be your distortions of my statements. ROTFLOL! yourself. 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.
You've been harping on that "92%" number for months on end, and the report never said "92% of those claiming deaths were able to provide death certificates. Just one more in a near-endless list of your distortions. What John Hopkins did say is
The fucker's maniacal with that ROTFLOL! It's downright creepy.
Why feed the troll? Let's call it 10,000 & go for War Crime Charges. The 'accurate' total is almost unimportant. BAC is spamming everyone - successfully.
I admit that I have never been able to win an argument with BAC in that he never gives up. He is world-champion spammer. and I am under the impression that I was first to call him 'BAC' at LP when trying unsuccessfully to argue with him. I gave up. You can't beat him. At the same time, his style is such that he does not convince many. honway found him useful.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Just one more indication that you don't really understand what you read or its implications. First of all, the use of 90% is incorrect. I think the WP was simplifying the study results for the simple minds that read it. I quote from the page numbered 5 (excluding the title page) of the John Hopkins' report: "At the conclusion of the interview in a household where a death was reported, the interviewers were to ask for a copy of the death certificate. In 92% of instances when this was asked, a death certificate was present." Now granted, it doesn't say that every household was asked ... just that interviewers were supposed to ask. But then, the report itself doesn't mention what percentage were actually asked. It leaves the impression that all were. But let's say you are right ... that only 87% of the households were asked. I did find an article on JH's own website that said "Interviewers had remembered to ask for death certificates in 87 percent of all cases of reported mortality". Remembered? You mean they forgot the rest of the time? And forgot to mention that little fact in their study report? But let's not get distracted by the precision with which the study was carried out. Tell us, AGAviator, why would you assume that those not asked would be any different in being able to supply death certificates than those asked had they been asked? And in any case, whether it's 92 percent or 80%, you still have the problem of hundreds of thousands of missing death certificates. No obfuscation you make will cause that serious problem to disappear. It remains a sure sign of great problems with the survey.
Where does the LA Times explicitly use the words "many times"? It doesn't. 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 most certainly did suggest that was a primary factor. Don't try and deny that. 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. FALSE FALSE FALSE. The minimum of the 95% confidence range was 8,000. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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?
Really? You, BeAChooser would testify before Congress that the Johns Hopkins' studies "are lies?" No? And why is that BeAChooser? Perhaps because you are not invited? And why is that? I'll give you the reason - because your laymanBot opinions and the opinions of Mr. neocon Kaplan from Slate and the opinions of the LA Times, Washington Post, Fox News news reporters and all the bloggers you have quoted, ARE NOT CONSIDERED EXPERT BECAUSE NONE OF YOU ARE EXPERTS on anything except the science of bushbotulism - ie. how to deny, obstruct, and cover your a** . That's your specialty. Let me tell you who was invited to testify before Congress on Dec. 11, 2006 -it was the 2 co-authors of the Lancet study, Dr. Gilbert Burnham, MD, and Dr. Les Roberts. Do you think these 2 men would "lie" to Congress? These are medical professionals, they're not war mongering professionals like Bibi Netanyahu. Drs. Burnham and Roberts actually had to attend college and pass board exams. Read this testimony, BAC. You might learn something about "expert testimony." Monday, December 11, 2006 "Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq" http://www.juancole.com/2006/12/kucinich-paul-congressional-hearing- on.html
You know, it could be made useful. Just make him a dustmop suit, and let him post in a room that needs the floors cleaned.....
#2. To: Minerva (#0)
#3. To: Morgana le Fay (#2)
#4. To: Minerva (#3)
#5. To: Minerva, BeAChooser (#0)
#6. To: Red Jones (#5)
(Edited)
#7. To: Minerva, christine, zipporah (#0)
#8. To: Minerva (#6)
#9. To: Brian S (#7)
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.
#10. To: Brian S (#7)
#11. To: Minerva (#9)
"But isn't BAC a special case?"
Captain Paul Watson
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
#12. To: Morgana le Fay (#10)
"yes bac is a special case, we won't do it to anyone else. promise."
Captain Paul Watson
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
#13. To: Ferret Mike (#11)
#14. To: Morgana le Fay, BeaChooser (#13)
Captain Paul Watson
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
#15. To: Morgana le Fay (#4)
no, you need to post a link selling magazine supscriptions. that's what beachy does when he doesn't have a source.
#16. To: Brian S, Minerva, christine, zipporah, Morgana le Fay, Red Jones, Ferret Mike, HOUNDDAWG (#7)
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.
#17. To: Minerva, BeAChooser (#0)
#18. To: Red Jones, ALL (#17)
I think BAC may have put me on bozo!
#19. To: Minerva (#0)
#20. To: Morgana le Fay, ... (#4)
no, you need to post a link selling magazine supscriptions.
#21. To: Destro (#16)
Anyone who places anyone on bozo for non harassment reasons on a forum is an intellectual coward.
#22. To: Diana (#21)
He's a classic narcissist, therefore impossible to reason with or get along with.
"It was an interesting day." - President Bush, recalling 9/11 [White House, 1/5/02]
#23. To: RickyJ (#22)
#24. To: Red Jones (#5)
(Edited)
BAC is the guy on the left.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these - - IndieTX
#25. To: RickyJ, All (#22)
#26. To: Diana (#25)
(Edited)
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.
"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.
#27. To: Red Jones (#5)
BAC is the guy on the left.
#28. To: Diana (#25)
http://www.whale.to/m/disin.html
#29. To: Destro, ALL (#16)
Anyone who places anyone on bozo for non harassment reasons on a forum is an intellectual coward.
#30. To: Diana, RickyJ, ALL (#25)
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.
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.
#31. To: AGAviator, Diana, ALL (#26)
Les Roberts Answers Your Questions
Juan Cole: 655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion
#32. To: angle, Red Jones (#28)
Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
#33. To: BeAChooser (#30)
Diana, you forgot to mention that you said this:
#34. To: Minerva (#0)
#35. To: BeAChooser (#30)
to explain away the discrepancy of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and missing news reports. Now since you appear to be denying that you believe large numbers of US soldiers were involved in this massive genocide and coverup (which, by the way, involves more than twice the dead Saddam is accused of putting in mass graves ... which they have found by the hundreds), perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us who you think did carry it out and how they managed to keep it secret from the hundreds of thousands of US soldiers who are in and have been to Iraq so far during this war?
#36. To: Diana (#21)
There is no intellect present in an exceedingly dishonest poster with a very questionable agenda.
#37. To: Destro (#36)
#38. To: Destro, Diana (#36)
Then he should be easy to debunk.
#39. To: Destro (#36)
#40. To: Red Jones, Destro (#38)
You are mistaken Destro. BAC has never lost an argument.
#41. To: Destro, christine (#36)
Then he should be easy to debunk.
#42. To: Diana, ALL (#33)
"Diana, you forgot to mention that you said this:"
"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."
This has to be some sort of stunt to get me to answer because otherwise it would imply........
You're NUTS!!
What do you think I wrote above ?? Just that!
#43. To: Red Jones, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Diana, Kamala, All (#5)
BAC is the guy on the left.
#44. To: Diana, ALL (#35)
Again, I'm surprised you're not aware of this practice, which occurs in ALL wars.
#45. To: BeAChooser (#44)
#46. To: angle, Destro, ALL (#41)
Your agendas are quite simply to disrupt any cogent thread with your nonsense.
#47. To: Brian S (#7)
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
#48. To: BeAChooser, SKYDRIFTER, Red Jones, tom007, Destro, christine, All (#44)
#49. To: Diana, ALL (#48)
I would appreciate an explanation of how you derived all these "facts", these interpretations, from my short post above, thanks.
#50. To: BeAChooser, Red Jones (#49)
#51. To: Diana, ALL (#50)
bob and weave and duck.....
#52. To: Red Jones, Diana (#38)
(Edited)
You are mistaken Destro. BAC has never lost an argument.
#53. To: angle (#41)
Neither he nor you are here to have legitimate discussion. Your agendas are quite simply to disrupt any cogent thread with your nonsense. Why bother debunking nonsense.
#54. To: BeAChooser, Diana (#44)
#55. To: Destro (#53)
#56. To: BeAChooser, rowdee, Red Jones, Scrapper 2, all (#42)
Really, Diana, you need to read complete sentences before responding. Here is the rest of the sentence you partially quoted ... the part you forgot to mention to your readers and then again ignored in your response to my complaint.
#57. To: BeAChooser (#42)
Here is the rest of the sentence you partially quoted ...
#58. To: BeAChooser (#44)
Do you think someone is out there disposing of the bodies after our soldiers kill them, Diana? If so, who is this someone? How many someone's are there?
#59. To: BeAChooser, rowdee (#51)
If you are not suggesting that someone in Iraq has disposed of half a million or more bodies without any record of doing so, just say so Diana, and I will be happy to apologize for misinterpreting your remarks.
#60. To: who knows what evil, Brian S (#47)
Brian S (#7)
#61. To: Diana (#56)
#62. To: BeAChooser (#31)
Readers ... note that not one of the following verifiable facts and concerns about the Les Roberts study is addressed in Mr Coles article:
#63. To: BeAChooser (#51)
If you are not suggesting that someone in Iraq has disposed of half a million or more bodies without any record of doing so, just say so Diana,
#64. To: BeAChooser (#31)
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?
In that same article, The Los Angeles times explicitly stated that 50,000 is a gross undercount and excluded entire sections of the country.
#65. To: AGAviator (#62)
#66. To: Diana, ALL (#56)
"to explain away the discrepancy of the 600,000 or so missing bodies, missing death certificates, and missing news reports."
I never said that, ever.
#67. To: Diana, ALL (#59)
"If you are not suggesting that someone in Iraq has disposed of half a million or more bodies without any record of doing so, just say so Diana, and I will be happy to apologize for misinterpreting your remarks."
Again, this is the entire post I wrote where you have pulled out all sorts of meanings and interpretations including my saying a mass genocide and cover up is taking place by our US govt. This is my entire quote that you have been monkeying around with, in it's entirety. And there are no "partial quotes" in it.
So, for like the tenth time, here it is, again:
"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."
#68. To: rowdee, Diana, ALL (#61)
Di, dear lady, just tell the bastard to go fuck himself and get it over with!
Being the nice sweet lady you are makes this turd-faced jerkoff bolder.
#69. To: AGAviator, ALL (#62)
"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"
Reading no farther than the first few lines, you already make a misleading statement, implying that Cole's numbers have no basis.
To give an idea of the lack of coverage of daily death statistics, Cole cites an example in Basra where the Iraqi governmente stated that one person each hour was assasinated for politcial reasons in that city. None of these made the news. That gives 24 unreported people just for political reasons in one day alone in one city alone. And Basra wasn't and isn't considered a particularly violent city.
Cole is proving his point quite well - and Cole has actually been to Iraq, unlike you. He just isn't offering proof in a way that you've set up in your own little world. All I can say is, life goes on without you.
#70. To: AGAviator, ALL (#64)
There are about 90 major towns and cities 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.
#71. To: christine (#60)
It is pretty fucking sad that this, of all forums, has come to this 'back and forth sniping tripe'.
#72. To: Minerva, ALL (#65)
Do I hear crickets?
#73. To: angle (#71)
now just a waste of unreadable posts and nonsense
#74. To: Minerva (#65)
http://www.whale.to/m/disin.html
#75. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#72)
#76. To: BeAChooser (#72)
Let's see if you have answers to my questions?
#77. To: Red Jones (#73)
(Edited)
BAC's posts have always been that way. Some think BAC is a paid shill. I don't think so myself. I think he's just psychotic and with less than average intelligence & talent. I don't think he has the talent to make clear posts that convince anyone.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these - - IndieTX
#78. To: BeAChooser, Minerva (#69)
Now the fact that John Hopkins estimate that Cole chooses to champion happens to be an order of magnitude different than half a dozen other estimates probably should have been a clue to Cole (and you) that something is amiss.
#79. To: BeAChooser, Minerva, Skydrifter, Red Jones (#70)
(Edited)
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?
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...
#80. To: AGAviator, ALL (#78)
The people who did the John Hopkins survey actually went out into Iraq, went to a diverse collection of sites, and risked their lives in the process.
The other people are like you, where if they even go to Iraq they stay behind the Green Zone and compile news reports from other people who also stay behind the Green Zone.
Now to compare apples to apples, tell me how the John Hopkins' study compares to another study that also had people going house to house in Iraq and taking a survey.
#81. To: AGAviator, ALL (#79)
"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.
"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.
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...
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...
#82. To: BeAChooser (#80)
So did this group http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-% 20English.pdf from the UN Development Program. In a much larger study than John Hopkins', they only found 24,000 war-related deaths
Chapter one examines housing conditions, the availability of infrastructure and services, and environmental issues.
Nothing about taking a survey to find out the extent of the war's casualties. You know nothing about me.
Asked and answered.
Now it's your turn. Tell us how a study that claims its random sample is representative of the country at large could have 92 percent of those claiming deaths provide a death certificate as proof when various mosques, hospitals and bureaucracies that issue death certificates can't
By the way ... did you ever find the source of Cole's claim about the deaths in Basra?
#83. To: BeAChooser (#81)
(Edited)
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?
Perhaps the folks in the John Hopkins' study simply create their own? ROTFLOL!
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.
But Kurdistan has been very peaceful compared to the rest of Iraq.
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.
#84. To: AGAviator, ALL (#82)
Your "group's" report consists of the following sections ... snip ... Nothing about taking a survey to find out the extent of the war's casualties.
"Now it's your turn. Tell us how a study that claims its random sample is representative of the country at large could have 92 percent of those claiming deaths provide a death certificate as proof when various mosques, hospitals and bureaucracies that issue death certificates can't"
Irrelevant. Bureaucracies tracking or not tracking death certificates they issue, does not equate to people receiving or not receiving said death certificates.
"By the way ... did you ever find the source of Cole's claim about the deaths in Basra?"
Cole was there and knows people there. You weren't, and don't.
#85. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#84)
#86. To: AGAviator, ALL (#83)
"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.
The LA Times like any reputable publication does not claim to know what it has just said it does not know.
"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.
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.
Kurdistan is a welfare project for Big Oil and Israeli shysters all being financed by the American taxpayer.
#87. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#86)
#88. To: BeAChooser (#84)
Did you look for the chapter titled "War-Related deaths - between 18,000 and 29,000." In Orange type. It's on page 54 (or 53 or 55 depending on how you interpret the numbering). That chapter says "The ILCS data has been derived from a question posed to households concerning missing and dead persons during the two years prior to the survey." And the study was based on much larger sample than the John's Hopkins' study.
Irrelevant. Bureaucracies tracking or not tracking death certificates they issue, does not equate to people receiving or not receiving said death certificates.
So that's going to be your *excuse*? That Iraq's morgues, hospitals, etc actually issued 655,000 death certificates but failed to write down the fact that they had or record any other information about the dead? ROTFLOL! Do you know how absolutely lame that sounds? ROTFLOL!
"Grossly undercounted," and
. So what do you do instead? Try to bluster past your ignorance with your usual flurry of "ROTFLOL's" But at least I was able to URL a source which discussed this rather than just claimed it.
Well at least now we know the real source of the claim. And according to the article "Tribes who once lived in the marshlands outside Basra are engaged in constant feuds with other tribes." So the violence is Shia on Shia. Gee ... I thought you folks have been saying the Shia are a monolith aligned with Iran.
Can we trust al-Zaman, http:// (www.azzaman.com? None other than Juan Cole provides us with this (http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/al-zaman-good-riddance- to-rumsfeld.html ) from the editorial staff at al-Zaman. It's in regards to the resignation of Rumsfeld.
"Everyone should read the signs of joy in Iraq after the announcement of the departure of a politician whose name is linked to the most heinous crimes, which began with the scandal of Abu Ghraib prison and ended with his unleashing of death squads and criminals to disrupt the security of Iraq. His crimes also included dissolving one of the oldest armies in the region, for the most part made up of brave patriots, as a preparation for the partition and tearing apart of Iraq.
That's not exactly a fair representation of the facts in my opinion. A bit of an exaggeration ... wouldn't you say?
And here's one last comment concerning conditions in Basra in 2007, a year later.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6373087.stm "Tony Blair has said the operation to allow Iraqis to take the lead in frontline security in Basra had been "completed" and "successful". ... snip ... He said the situation was different in the two different areas, with no Sunni insurgency or al-Qaeda suicide attacks in the Basra area.
#89. To: AGAviator, BeAChooser (#88)
#90. To: BeAChooser (#86)
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!
"Grossly undercounted," and
. So what do you do instead? Try to bluster past your ignorance with your usual flurry of "ROTFLOL's" 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?
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.
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.
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.
Consider ... 39 months times 30 days times 24 hours time 1/hour = 28,080.
When are you going to understand that the John Hopkins study is fundamentally flawed?
#91. To: Dakmar (#89)
An 8-track with a cult following.
#92. To: AGAviator (#90)
#93. To: AGAviator (#91)
power chord>
They aren't we!
Them ain't me!
#94. To: AGAviator (#91)
#95. To: AGAviator, ALL (#88)
Given the stated purpose of the survey, any questions about missing and dead persons were quite secondary to that stated purpose.
And here's one last comment concerning conditions in Basra in 2007, a year later.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6373087.stm "Tony Blair has said the operation to allow Iraqis to take the lead in frontline security in Basra had been "completed" and "successful". ... snip ... He said the situation was different in the two different areas, with no Sunni insurgency or al-Qaeda suicide attacks in the Basra area."
Debunked Here
#96. To: AGAviator, ALL (#90)
"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
Anbar is off-limits to the world media.
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,
#97. To: AGAviator, ALL (#90)
there has been more than $1 Trillion spent on it
#98. To: BeAChooser (#97)
(Edited)
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
Debunked Here
By Patrick Cockburn, 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".
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.
Simply put, chaos in the first year cannot explain the missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. You must be really comfortable in the ME because your arguments shift just like the desert sands. ROTFLOL!
There has been more than $1 Trillion spent on it
By the way ... this is another bit of misinformation.
#99. To: BeAChooser (#96)
The missing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of death certificates that MUST exist if the John Hopkins claim that 92 percent of those claiming deaths were able to provide death certificates is to be believed
The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates
. And 90% of 87% = 78%, not 92%.
#100. To: AGAviator (#98)
#101. To: AGAviator, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#99)
#102. To: SKYDRIFTER, BeAChooser (#101)
BAC is spamming everyone - successfully
#103. To: AGAviator, ALL (#99)
You've been harping on that "92%" number for months on end, and the report never said "92% of those claiming deaths were able to provide death certificates.
Just one more in a near-endless list of your distortions.
What John Hopkins did say is
"The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates."
And 90% of 87% = 78%, not 92%.
#104. To: AGAviator, ALL (#98)
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.
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,
"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.
"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.
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.
The war has cost more than $1 Trillion,
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.
The supplemental appropriations for Iraq alone are well past half a trillion
#105. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#104)
(Edited)
The John Hopkins' studies are lies.
#106. To: Nostalgia (#100)
The fucker's maniacal with that ROTFLOL! It's downright creepy.
 | Gold and silver are real money, paper is but a promise. |
#107. To: BeAChooser (#103)
You would have absolutely nothing to talk about if you were not distracted by that precision. As Skydrifter states, even 10,000 civilians would be a war crime. I never said that. The study was to count deaths, not count death certificates. Furthermore, as I have already stated, there are a number of people - tens of thousands minimum - whose bodies have never been found due to their being dumped in rivers or buried under rubble. And there are also large numbers of people who have not had relatives survive to note they were dead or missing. These numbers would need to be added to any totals derived from interviews of surviving relatives and neighbors. The only obfuscations are your attempts to claim the death certificates are missing, when you've been repeatedly told that issuing death certificates during chaotic times, and summarizing the number of death certificates that were issued several years and hundreds of miles after the fact, are two completely different processes. Come to think of it, there is one more obfuscation of yours. That is your complete inability to come up with any numbers of your own - just like the Administration which would greatly like the numbers to be forgotten and dismissed.
But let's not get distracted by the precision with which the study was carried out.
Why would you assume that those not asked would be any different in being able to supply death certificates than those asked had they been asked?
And in any case, whether it's 92 percent or 80%, you still have the problem of hundreds of thousands of missing death certificates. No obfuscation you make will cause that serious problem to disappear.
#108. To: BeAChooser (#104)
I said the LA Times said many times its number is too low. As in saying 5 or 6 times its number was too low, using phrases like "grossly undercounted." Not that the LA Times said the number was "grossly undercounted many times." "In any case...you still have the problem of "No obfuscation you make will cause that serious problem to disappear. It remains a sure sign of great problems with the ROTFLOL!
The supplemental appropriations for Iraq alone are well past half a trillion
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.
No, the supplemental appropriations for the WOT as a whole are past half a trillion dollars. Not for just Iraq.
hundreds of thousands of missing death certificates hundreds of billions of missing dollars. survey war."
#109. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, ALL (#105)
Be happy to, scrapper. Yes. Too bad none of those on the Congressional staffs were smart enough (or honest enough, themselves) to prompt their Congressperson to ask Burnham and Roberts about that 92% claim. Now THAT would have been interesting. Kucinich? Ron Paul? ROTFLOL! Now there's two with no agenda to promote. (sarcasm) You want an example of those of Burnham and Roberts LYING to Congress, scrapper? Here, from own your source: Where are the missing death certificates?
You, BeAChooser would testify before Congress that the Johns Hopkins' studies "are lies?"
"Let me tell you who was invited to testify before Congress on Dec. 11, 2006 -it was the 2 co-authors of the Lancet study, Dr. Gilbert Burnham, MD, and Dr. Les Roberts."
Do you think these 2 men would "lie" to Congress?
"Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq"
http://www.juancole.com/2006/12/kucinich-paul-congressional-hearing-on.html
DR. BURNHAM - "And then at the end of that survey where there was a death in the household, we asked, "By the way, do you have a death certificate?" And in 91 percent of households where this was asked, the households had death certificates. So we're confident that people were not making up deaths that didn't occur."
#110. To: AGAviator, SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#107)
Would one? I didn't say you said that. I said you assumed it. You assumed it in your calculation of 78%. It is implicit in the math. You assumed that the 13% who were not asked to provide proof (because the researchers *forgot*) were so special that they wouldn't have been able to provide even one death certificate. Wouldn't it be more likely since they were only *randomly* forgotten, that they'd be able to provide death certificates with the same regularity as those who were asked? An understanding of statistics would suggest that. But tens of thousands missing is not your problem. Your problem is hundreds and hundreds of thousands. ROTFLOL! Now you are moving on to yet another excuse. And you demonstrate again that you don't understand the methodology of the survey. They multiplied the mortality rate determined from those claiming dead by the TOTAL pre-war population of the country. Thus, they included at least some portion of dead for those who had no relatives. Furthermore, this possibility doesn't explain the discrepancy between the current John Hopkins' estimate and the missing death certificates. It could only makes the discrepancy even bigger because including this would only increase the estimated number of dead somewhat. It's not a claim, it is a fact. The LA Times article mentioned the first year as being particularly chaotic. But the first year doesn't account for half a million missing certificates. Because only 100,000 died during that time (actually the first 18 months) according to both John Hopkins first and second reports. Surely you aren't NOW claiming that the following 21 months were more chaotic than the first 18? Or are you? "Grossly undercounted" could just as easily mean 50% too low. Or a factor of two. If they meant the count was off by a factor of 5 or 6 (or 10 as John Hopkins would have us believe), they would surely have made an even stronger declaration than merely saying "grossly". Let's remind our readers how that term was actually used in the LA Times: "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 as I pointed out, to explain even half of the claimed dead in the John Hopkins' study, HALF the pre-war population of Anbar would now have to be dead and surely the rest would have to be injured. Which is totally ridiculous given the fact that NO ONE has made such a claim or proven such a slaughter. NO ONE.
As Skydrifter states, even 10,000 civilians would be a war crime.
"Why would you assume that those not asked would be any different in being able to supply death certificates than those asked had they been asked?"
I never said that.
Furthermore, as I have already stated, there are a number of people - tens of thousands minimum - whose bodies have never been found due to their being dumped in rivers or buried under rubble.
And there are also large numbers of people who have not had relatives survive to note they were dead or missing.
The only obfuscations are your attempts to claim the death certificates are missing
, when you've been repeatedly told that issuing death certificates during chaotic times,
I said the LA Times said many times its number is too low. As in saying 5 or 6 times its number was too low, using phrases like "grossly undercounted."
#111. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, robin, christine, aristeides, leveller, bluedogtxn, Burkeman1, Brians S, SKYDRIFTER, All (#109) (Edited)
1. You are not asked to testify before Congress about Iraqi civilian deaths because you are not an expert in epidemiology. If Congress were investigating bushbotulism or trollism, then you might be called to testify as an expert. Your call letters litter up the internet highway. 2. As for your accusation that Paul and Kucinich had an agenda to promote by having these 2 men testify, you tell me, what might that "agenda" be? Drs. Roberts and Burnham had way more than enough publicity in the public domain. So you tell me - what would Congressmen Paul's and Kucinch's "agenda" be? 3. As for your example of Drs. Roberts' and Burnham's "LYING" - your uppercase machismo boldness is a scream - anyways, here's the thing oozer, these 2 professionals are both highly respected, regarded individuals in their fields of expertise. These men ARE the experts, they both are "the real thing" in epidemiology, they do not lie because they have too much riding on anything that goes out under their signatures to lie. For example these 2 men are so highly regarded that Colin Powell and Tony Blair refer to their previous studies in speeches. "...Roberts has been puzzled and disturbed by this response to his work, which stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months of war and, as he says, “Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity.” In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of foreign armies from the Congo and the U.S. State Department cited his study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid. Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address to the 2001 Labor Party conference..." http://zmagsite.zmag.org /Feb2006/davies0206.html 4. As for your ranting about death certificates - what point are you trying to make? When Iraqis produced death certificates you question why these Iraqis have the certificates to produce. And then when Iraqis do not produce death certificates you question why they do not have the certificates. Flip flop flip flop - nothing satisfies you, because you don't want to be satisfied. It's what trolls do after all - throw dust on issues to hide truth. 5. Here's the thing oozer, I don't want to repeat this to you again, so pay attention: All the death certificates issued for dead Iraqis were not housed in one single central place like the Ministry of Health in Baghad, for example, nor were death certificates issued by one single central authority. The physicians in the small towns could and would issue death certificates to Iraqi families as the need arose because of the necessity of burying a loved one in agraveyard within 24 hours due to Islamic law. That's one of the reasons why LA Times could not find tallies of death certificates to correspond to what the Iraqis showed the JH team in the cluster samples. The LA Times crew would need to take their butts to Iraq and go to the villages and towns and cities that JH's team went to, which of course the LA Times nor your pal, Mr. neocon Kaplan would dare to do. Also, though the Iraqi families in towns and cities would need to get a death certificate from their local physicians in order to be able to have their loved ones buried in grave yards, it is not likely these families would have the death certificates recorded officially with the Ministry of Health because people have been getting food rations even in 2006. And if a family reports a death officially, you lose that ration. And btw, that information comes from Dr. Les Roberts - he wrote me back after I asked him your question. You should send him a list of all your questions, bac, Dr. Roberts is quite prompt to return emails. But then again, you probably do not want Dr. Roberts to answer your questions do you, BAC.
#112. To: scrapper2, BeAChooser, AGAviator, ALL (#111)
Beachy (the laughing spam boy) might as well have everyone filtered. By his own admission here, he doesn't read what anyone else posts.
But it takes two to debate and so far I haven't even found one willing to do that. ROTFLOL! (Beachy)
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#113. To: Minerva (#112)
Well that would explain why he doesn't respond to a simple direct question asked 3 times.
Beachy (the laughing spam boy) might as well have everyone filtered. By his own admission here, he doesn't read what anyone else posts.
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#114. To: Minerva (#0)
My bozo count is 387 so far.
#115. To: BeAChooser (#109)
With so many deaths, maybe the medical examiner is a little bit backlogged.
Where are the missing death certificates?
#116. To: BeALoser (#115) (Edited)
BeALoser: With so many deaths, maybe the medical examiner is a little bit backlogged. And also please see the information in my msg #111. Islam requires burial within 24 hours. If a physician cannot be reached easily within that time frame for a death certificate to be issued, the loved one is buried without a certificate in a place other than a grave yard.
BAC: Where are the missing death certificates?
#117. To: BeALoser (#114)
Welcome, Bealy.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#118. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#110)
BUT, you Mossadite piece of shit, you don't address the War Crimes which produceded ANY of the bodies, whatever the quantity may be! There's your 'flag.' (Blue and White, no doubt.) But as I pointed out, ....
#119. To: Minerva, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#112)
We're feeding the troll; he laughs at every occurence.
#120. To: SKYDRIFTER, All (#119)
Perhaps - rather, more than likely. But I thought other 4 um posters would like to hear some of the things that Dr. Roberts emailed to me. See my post #111 and #116.
We're feeding the troll; he laughs at every occurence.
#121. To: scrapper2, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#111)
Good response. BAC deserved that one, for sure.
#122. To: scrapper2, ALL (#111)
ROTFLOL! Blah blah blah. Then explain why their survey just happened to pick a group of people of whom 92% of those claiming a death could supply a death certificate, when only a fraction of that number of death certificates seemed to have been issued in Iraq? You folks still haven't come up with a viable explanation of this. You folks would have us believe that Iraq has seen twice the number of people killed as a percentage of population as Germany did in WW2, even though the allies carpet bombed almost every major city in Germany over a four year period. You folks would have us believe that Iraq has seen as many people killed as Japan did, even though almost every major city in Japan was firebombed in WW2. It is beyond ridiculous. The simple truth is that you are willing to blindly believe a group of researchers who admit they published their study when they did to negatively affect Bush's reelection, who used people in Iraq to conduct the study that they said "hated" the Americans, who published the study in a journal that itself admits rushing the article to print to negatively influence the war effort. And now you want to claim that Kucinich and Paul have no agenda? ROTFLOL! ROTFLOL! You STILL don't understand? Did they produce death certificates? Based on whose word? The people that conducted the survey that the researchers themselves admitted "hate" the Americans? An indication that their claim of 92 percent is a lie is that only a TENTH that number of death certificates seems to have been issued during the time in question. Is that point so hard to understand, scrapper? The LA Times said they went to morgues, hospitals and the Health Ministry in various parts of Iraq in order to attempt a comprehensive investigation. Prove this. Provide us with ANYTHING that indicates that is the way it works in Iraq. What the LA Times seemed to indicate is that violent deaths get reported to morgues, hospitals and the Health Ministry. I don't think you can explain a disparity of 10 to 1 by claiming Iraqi doctors issued death certificates to people and didn't report that to anyone. I think you are grasping for straws, scrapper. Prove this. You are doing nothing but speculating. ROTFLOL! And he is speculating too. Since you don't seem to have understood my question (you admitted this at the beginning of your post), why don't you actually post the exact wording of what you claim you emailed Dr Roberts. I'd love to see it. And I'd love to see his exact response (as opposed to your interpretation of it). Dare you provide that?
2. As for your accusation that Paul and Kucinich had an agenda to promote by having these 2 men testify, you tell me, what might that "agenda" be?
3. As for your example of Drs. Roberts' and Burnham's "LYING" ... snip ... These men ARE the experts, they both are "the real thing" in epidemiology, they do not lie because they have too much riding on anything that goes out under their signatures to lie.
4. As for your ranting about death certificates - what point are you trying to make?
When Iraqis produced death certificates you question why these Iraqis have the certificates to produce.
All the death certificates issued for dead Iraqis were not housed in one single central place like the Ministry of Health in Baghad, for example, nor were death certificates issued by one single central authority.
The physicians in the small towns could and would issue death certificates to Iraqi families as the need arose because of the necessity of burying a loved one in agraveyard within 24 hours due to Islamic law.
Also, though the Iraqi families in towns and cities would need to get a death certificate from their local physicians in order to be able to have their loved ones buried in grave yards,
And btw, that information comes from Dr. Les Roberts
he wrote me back after I asked him your question.
#123. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#122)
You and your spam, BAC. Trolls are good about begging food - you prove that. What was it that Hitler devised? "I defeated my [political] enemies by giving them work to do." You and your Next-Generation Nazism, there, BAC!
#124. To: SKYDRIFTER, scrapper2, Kamala, Critter, Red Jones, RickyJ, Jethro Tul, Minerva, All (#119)
he elicits educative posts from others. that's a valuable contribution to 4. :P
#125. To: BeAChooser (#104)
You tell lies that even the authors of the war no longer are willing to state publicly. No I did not, and you are lying. That is not an identical time period. Look up "identical" Look up "[the survey's] authors opined" while you're at it. There are no "missing" death certificates. The people in the survey had them, and everything else is your usual speculation and arm-waving. 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. 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 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. 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. And I'm sure you'll be the first to admit how jihadists are soooo reasonable, you sillier and sillier, lamer and lamer numbskull. 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 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. I never said that, liar. It appears your entire arguments have collapsed for you to make such grandiose and unfounded claims. 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. Your biggest bullshit statement yet. Name one person who agrees with you. Sillier and sillier. Lamer and lamer. 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.
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.
The surveys did not cover identical time periods,
FALSE. The second survey includes the period 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.
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.
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 blah blah blah.
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.
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.
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....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.
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.
#126. To: BeALoser (#114)
I demand the Bozo certificates!
My bozo count is 387 so far.
#127. To: scrapper2, skydrifter (#111)
BAM! Excellent post! Slam dunk.
And btw, that information comes from Dr. Les Roberts - he wrote me back after I asked him your question. You should send him a list of all your questions, bac, Dr. Roberts is quite prompt to return emails. But then again, you probably do not want Dr. Roberts to answer your questions do you, BAC.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#128. To: scrapper2 (#111) (Edited)
5. Here's the thing oozer, I don't want to repeat this to you again, so pay attention: All the death certificates issued for dead Iraqis were not housed in one single central place like the Ministry of Health in Baghad, for example, nor were death certificates issued by one single central authority. The physicians in the small towns could and would issue death certificates to Iraqi families as the need arose Also, though the Iraqi families in towns and cities would need to get a death certificate from their local physicians in order to be able to have their loved ones buried in grave yards, it is not likely these families would have the death certificates recorded officially with the Ministry of Health because people have been getting food rations even in 2006. And if a family reports a death officially, you lose that ration. Excellent post. And corroborates just what I've been saying all along - that there is a difference between getting a death certificate [survey] and a government agency having totals of death certificates at the central government level in Baghdad [LA Times]. Physicians in Iraq can also issue death certificates in addition to governmental agencies. The death certificates the LA Times was trying to collate were solely from governmental agencies, not from physicians.
As for your ranting about death certificates - what point are you trying to make? When Iraqis produced death certificates you question why these Iraqis have the certificates to produce. And then when Iraqis do not produce death certificates you question why they do not have the certificates. Flip flop flip flop - nothing satisfies you, because you don't want to be satisfied. It's what trolls do after all - throw dust on issues to hide truth.
#129. To: Minerval, scrapper2, BeAChooser, Skydrifter, diana, Christine, Red Jones (#112)
Scrapper2 just blew Looser out of the water with his reference that Iraqi doctors also issue death certificates in addition to hospitals and morgues. Looser has been going on and on with his lies and distortions about "missing death certificates" for months on end. Probably posts in the hundreds about this non-issue. Combined with his/her trademarked spam, "ROTFLOL's," and grandiose proclamations of victory. Will (s)he be honest enough to admit it and stop pretending that it is an issue? Never. Expect more of the same. However for everyone else, this thread is a prime example of BAC's intellectual dishonesty. For his non-existent "readers," he claims to be posting to [because he will not convince anybody on this site], it will convincingly demonstrate once and for his/her lack of credibility.
Beachy (the laughing spam boy) might as well have everyone filtered. By his own admission here, he doesn't read what anyone else posts.
#130. To: scrapper2 (#116)
Are you saying they can't get buried in grave yards without death certificates? Seems reasonable to prevent people from burying individuals they're guilty of killing themselves.
If a physician cannot be reached easily within that time frame for a death certificate to be issued, the loved one is buried without a certificate in a place other than a grave yard.
#131. To: scrapper2 (#111) (Edited)
True to form, the dishonest troll now demands further proof after you've debunked his claims and his grandiose proclamations. As usual, it's not worth wasting links on him/her, because all (s)he will do is demand more links. That's how a troll operates. However for you, here's the following Link: Iraq's Hospitals Are New Killing Fields As a result, more and more Iraqis are avoiding hospitals, making it even harder to preserve life in a city where death is seemingly everywhere. Gunshot victims are now being treated by nurses in makeshift emergency rooms set up in homes.... The reluctance of Sunnis to enter hospitals is making it increasingly difficult to assess the number of casualties caused by sectarian violence. During a recent attack on Shiite pilgrims, a top Sunni political leader accused the Shiite-led government of ignoring large numbers of Sunnis who he said were also killed and wounded in the clash, though he was unable to offer even a rough estimate of the Sunni casualties...In Baghdad these days, not even the hospitals are safe. In growing numbers, sick and wounded Sunnis have been abducted from public hospitals operated by Iraq's Shiite-run Health Ministry and later killed, according to patients, families of victims, doctors and government officials.
#132. To: BeAChooser (#110) (Edited)
Are you claiming one? If not, why are you obfuscating? Don't put words into my mouth. No I didn't. As usual, your only communication is lies and distortions. Wouldn't it be more likely that all you do is try to make other people say things they didn't, instead of addressing what they actually did? No it is not. You still haven't come to grips with the magnitude of things like "gross undercount," and "did not count deaths outside Baghdad in the first year," and "Iraqi doctors issue death certificates." So they didn't count everybody. What did I just finish telling you, airhead? Plus, they did not count *some portion* of the dead whose bodies were not found. There are no missing death certificates. Cite someone to support you. They're not missing. That's not what the John Hopkins survey said. I don't claim anything to a troll. I simply point out where you are trying to muddy up the issue. No it doesn't, liar. "Gross" means "very large." "Two" is not "very large." Says who? You? As I've said before, if they knew exactly how much they were off, they would have the actual number. Let's remind our readers that Iraqi doctors can issue death certificates, and the "Iraqi officials" the LA Times was talking to are hundreds of miles away from the places where the deaths took place, in a war zone. No one except you says that "HALF the pre-war population of Anbar would now have to be dead." Juan Cole says, and I say, that an average of 4 excess deaths a day throughout Iraq will attain the 600,000 comfortably. You're right, NO ONE else has. Just you have. Which shows why you're totally ridiculous, and can only communicate by making totally ridiculous statements that other people never said.
As Skydrifter states, even 10,000 civilians would be a war crime.
Would one?
I didn't say you said that. I said you assumed it. You assumed it in your calculation of 78%. It is implicit in the math.
You assumed that the 13% who were not asked to provide proof (because the researchers *forgot*) were so special that they wouldn't have been able to provide even one death certificate.
Wouldn't it be more likely since they were only *randomly* forgotten
But tens of thousands missing is not your problem. Your problem is hundreds and hundreds of thousands.
And there are also large numbers of people who have not had relatives survive to note they were dead or missing.
ROTFLOL! blah blah blah Thus, they included at least *some portion* of dead for those who had no relatives.
Furthermore, this possibility doesn't explain the discrepancy between the current John Hopkins' estimate and the missing death certificates.
It's not a claim, it is a fact.
The LA Times article mentioned the first year as being particularly chaotic.
But the first year doesn't account for half a million missing certificates.
Because only 100,000 died during that time (actually the first 18 months) according to both John Hopkins first and second reports.
Surely you aren't NOW claiming that the following 21 months were more chaotic than the first 18? Or are you?
I said the LA Times said many times its number is too low. As in saying 5 or 6 times its number was too low, using phrases like "grossly undercounted."
"Grossly undercounted" could just as easily mean 50% too low. Or a factor of two.
If they meant the count was off by a factor of 5 or 6 (or 10 as John Hopkins would have us believe), they would surely have made an even stronger declaration than merely saying "grossly".
Let's remind our readers
But as I pointed out, to explain even half of the claimed dead in the John Hopkins' study, HALF the pre-war population of Anbar would now have to be dead and surely the rest would have to be injured.
Which is totally ridiculous given the fact that NO ONE has made such a claim or proven such a slaughter. NO ONE.
#133. To: AGAviator (#129)
yep. as i said earlier, he elicits good educational (and often witty) posts from everyone else. that's the only value he contributes.
For his non-existent "readers," he claims to be posting to [because he will not convince anybody on this site], it will convincingly demonstrate once and for his/her lack of credibility.
#134. To: christine (#133)
Thre's got to be something just a tad off with somebody who goes to a website where almost nobody likes him/her, then spends all his/her time arguing about posts (s)he considers "kooky" or "ridiculous." "ROTFLOL!!!"
#135. To: christine (#124)
I concur. I've learned a lot about 9-11 and about what's going on in that meat grinder over there by watching folks beat the crap out of Loser. If he ever goes off the payroll, it would be a shame. We should consider getting together a little kitty for the poor boy. Pass the hat. Cheers. ;P
he elicits educative posts from others. that's a valuable contribution to 4. :P
Money trumps . . . uh . . . . peace . . sometimes. - GW Bush
#136. To: AGAviator, ALL (#125)
You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. You want to play word games, that's ok with me. 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. Right. All you do with your word games is demonstrate that you don't understand survey statistics and the meaning of a representative sample. Oh that's right, you don't believe in cost/benefit analysis. 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.
"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.
There are no "missing" death certificates. The people in the survey had them, and everything else is your usual speculation and arm-waving.
"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.
"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?
"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.
"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.
"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
#137. To: AGAviator, ALL (#128)
Prove it. And prove they issued anything close to 550,000 death certificates (the number missing).
Physicians in Iraq can also issue death certificates in addition to governmental agencies.
#138. To: AGAviator, ALL (#129)
Would readers like some examples of AGAviator's intellectual dishonesty ... besides defending as sound the methodology used by John Hopkins to estimate that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion began? Here were some of the views AGAviator espoused over at LibertyPost the past year or so to me (I'm sure he posted lots of other gems to others): - There would be no benefits from turning Iraq into a vibrant, wealthy, pro-western, anti-terrorist democracy. None whatsoever ... - GDP is not a measure of economic health (contrary to the opinion of economists worldwide). - He claims to supports the US military even though he claims they are covering up the deaths of more than 655,000 Iraqis (yeah, right...) - 250,000 tons of munitions have been looted in Iraq (although he can't seem to prove more a few tens of thousands of tons is actually missing). - His alternative to freeing Kuwait and invading Iraq/Afghanistan was to send me over there. - Ron Brown died of blunt force trauma in an accidental plane crash - This graph shows housing prices dropped 16% between 2005 and 2006. In fact, just visit LibertyPost. You will find AGAviator filling thread after thread with intellectual dishonesty, many of them regarding the John Hopkins' studies.
However for everyone else, this thread is a prime example of BAC's intellectual dishonesty.
#139. To: All (#137)
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues. Teamwork...BLoviator and Ooser are at it agains creating strawmen and playing off each other.
You can often spot the disinfo types at work here by the unique application of "higher standards" of discussion than necessarily warranted. They will demand that those presenting arguments or concepts back everything up with the same level of expertise as a professor, researcher, or investigative writer. Anything less renders anydiscussion meaningless and unworthy in their opinion, and anyone who disagrees is obviously stupid -- and they generally put it in exactly those terms.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
#140. To: AGAviator, ALL (#131)
NOTHING is said in that article about doctors operating outside the morgues and hospitals issuing death certificates ... or then failing to notify any authority of the death. In this country, a doctor would lose his license for doing that. You need to prove that doctors have been religiously issuing death certificates when people die. You need to prove that doctors acting outside the hospitals, morgues and health ministry, have issued death certificates to roughly 92% of the families who have lost someone in Iraq. And then failed to notify any morgue, hospital or the health ministry of the death. Because if you can't do that, we have good reasons to doubt the John Hopkins study. It claimed that 92 percent of those with dead family members were able to provide a death certificate. Yet the LATimes could only come up with about 50,000 recorded by morgues, hospitals and the Health Ministry. Leaving some 550,000 missing.
Link: Iraq's Hospitals Are New Killing Fields
#141. To: AGAviator (#130)
b. Seems reasonable to prevent people from burying individuals they're guilty of killing themselves. a. Yes, that is what Dr. Roberts told me is a requirement in Iraq. b. Good observation.
a. Are you saying they can't get buried in grave yards without death certificates?
#142. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, angle, randge, christine, Minerva, innieway, SKYDRIFTER, Diana, Red Jones, Indie TX, BeALoser, Critter, Kamala, critter, Ricky J, Jethro Tull, robin, Honway, aristeides, bluedogtxn, leveller, Burkeman1, All (#122) (Edited)
The following is Dr. Roberts' email response to my asking him about the differing number of death certificates that the LA Times discovered by contacting morgues and hospitals etc. as opposed to what his team found in their cluster sampling. This is a fair question! a) only ~40,000 deaths were recorded by the system in 2002. Thus, we think it was only about 30% complete before the war and what would make us think it would become more complete during the war? b) As my Iraqi colleagues describe it, many doctors can issue death certificates.....thus it is not as if most bodies are going to morgues. Especially in the smaller cities, people just need a certificate to put a body in a grave yard and just want that form from any doctor. c) Two Iraqi doctors have heard me speak recently and came up after to point out that people have been getting food rations even in 2006. If a family reports a death officially, you lose that ration. d) I encourage you to find a few Iraqis and have them make a couple of phone calls and give you a list of the deaths in some friend's home street over the past few months. I promise you that most of them will not be identifiable on the Iraqbodycount dataset. I do not have access to the official Iraq Government data. The UN pointed out that in July of last year the system recorded exactly 0 violent deaths in Anbar Province. We lost a couple US soldiers there that month with a couple dozen seriously wounded. I hope this helps. Les
I'd love to see his exact response (as opposed to your interpretation of it). Dare you provide that?
#143. To: Red Jones (#102)
I don't know about that... I posed serious questions here, and his response (as usual) was ROTFLOL. In my opinion, NO ATTEMPT to answer the questions is the same as a "victory". HE CANNOT, AND WILL NOT ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS - BECAUSE HE HAS NO ANSWERS.
You can't beat him.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#144. To: AGAviator, ALL (#132)
Not obfuscation. Clarification. I want to find out what you actually consider a war crime. You indicated 10,000 above. But would 9,000 qualify? 8,000? 5,000? 500? 5? 1? Where do you draw the line in your hyperbole, AGAviator? I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm pointing out to folk what that math you did CLEARLY implies. That NONE of 13% who didn't answer the question would be able to supply a death certificate. You are the one who has claimed to be the math genius. Didn't you know that when you did that little math calculation? Or perhaps your understanding of that calculation is about the same as your understanding of that graph I posted above on the change in housing prices year to year. The math doesn't lie, AGAviator. You tried to tell us that only 78% of Iraqis claiming deaths would have to provide a death certificate for the John Hopkins report to be valid. That number inherently assumes that the 13% that were not asked to supply death certificates would not have been able to do so. Go ahead and play word games, that's ok with me. Yes it is. This is from the second report: "Since the 2006 survey included the period of time contained in the 2004 survey, we could compare these two results for the time frame from January 2002 through August 2004. In 2004, we estimated that somewhere in excess of 100,000 deaths occurred from the time of the invasion until August 2004. Using data from the 2006 survey, we estimate that the number of excess deaths during that time were about 112,000." Go ahead and play word games. That's ok with me. Play word games. That's ok with me. 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" So it seems that no matter what the subject, grossly undercounted can indeed mean a much smaller discrepancy than the one you would have us believe. Prove it. And prove that they then aren't under any obligation to pass on a copy of that death certificate to authorities, as they are here in the United States. Play word games all you want. YOU offered Anbar as an explanation for why there are so many death certificates missing. Not I. I simply showed that even if you used Anbar to explain only half the number of death certificates that are missing, then half the population of Anbar would have to be dead now. A ridiculous assertion ... hence Anbar cannot begin to account for the number of missing death certificates. But earlier you denied claiming that 4 excess deaths a day have occurred in every remotely large city in Iraq since the beginning of the war. Yet that assumption is necessary to even account for 400,000 of the deaths. Make up your mind, AGAviator. Is all of Iraq more violent than even the anti-war folks were claiming Baghdad was at its peak violence, or not? Our readers should keep in mind this: As noted by the author of this, "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?" Play word games all you want, that's ok with me.
As Skydrifter states, even 10,000 civilians would be a war crime.
"Would one?"
Are you claiming one? If not, why are you obfuscating?
"I didn't say you said that. I said you assumed it. You assumed it in your calculation of 78%. It is implicit in the math."
Don't put words into my mouth.
"You assumed that the 13% who were not asked to provide proof (because the researchers *forgot*) were so special that they wouldn't have been able to provide even one death certificate."
No I didn't. As usual, your only communication is lies and distortions.
"Wouldn't it be more likely since they were only *randomly* forgotten"
Wouldn't it be more likely that all you do is try to make other people say things they didn't, instead of addressing what they actually did?
"Because only 100,000 died during that time (actually the first 18 months) according to both John Hopkins first and second reports."
That's not what the John Hopkins survey said.
"Surely you aren't NOW claiming that the following 21 months were more chaotic than the first 18? Or are you?"
I don't claim anything to a troll. I simply point out where you are trying to muddy up the issue.
""Grossly undercounted" could just as easily mean 50% too low. Or a factor of two."
No it doesn't, liar.
"Gross" means "very large." "Two" is not "very large."
Let's remind our readers that Iraqi doctors can issue death certificates
"But as I pointed out, to explain even half of the claimed dead in the John Hopkins' study, HALF the pre-war population of Anbar would now have to be dead and surely the rest would have to be injured."
No one except you says that "HALF the pre-war population of Anbar would now have to be dead. Juan Cole says, "
and I say, that an average of 4 excess deaths a day throughout Iraq will attain the 600,000 comfortably.
"Which is totally ridiculous given the fact that NO ONE has made such a claim or proven such a slaughter. NO ONE."
You're right, NO ONE else has. Just you have. Which shows why you're totally ridiculous, and can only communicate by making totally ridiculous statements that other people never said.
#145. To: christine, ALL (#133)
Says christine, who admitted earlier that she'd bozo'd herself so she wouldn't have to read my posts. Now how can someone who only sees half the thread make the above statement? Indeed, what is it about so many FD4UM members that they have to bozo themselves from my posts ... when all I'm posting are sourced facts and sound logic? Do they fear sourced facts that dispute their world-view? Does sound logic make them uncomfortable? That would appear to be the case.
yep. as i said earlier, he elicits good educational (and often witty) posts from everyone else. that's the only value he contributes.
#146. To: innieway, Red Jones (#143)
correct. only he himself thinks he "won." endurance he does have though. gotta give him that.
#147. To: BeAChooser (#145)
Dead links are not sourced facts. If your logic was sound you would sway more people and fewer would bozo you.
Indeed, what is it about so many FD4UM members that they have to bozo themselves from my posts ... when all I'm posting are sourced facts and sound logic?
God is always good!
"It was an interesting day." - President Bush, recalling 9/11 [White House, 1/5/02]
#148. To: angle, ALL (#139)
http://www.whale.to/m/disin.html
#149. To: BeAChooser (#145)
blah, blah, blah. all i have to do is read one of your posts and i've read them all. it's the same crap you've posted for years.
#150. To: scrapper2, ALL (#141)
Prove it. Post the email you sent him and post the email he sent back.
a. Yes, that is what Dr. Roberts told me is a requirement in Iraq.
#151. To: scrapper2, ALL (#142)
Now let's see the email you actually posted him, scrapper, since you said you passed on MY question to him. "we THINK it was only about 30 percent complete"? Sorry, Les is trying to claim his 100,000 figure was right when that figure was also demonstrably bogus. Ask him to explain the discrepancy between his pre-war mortality estimate of 5 per 1000 per year and what the UN and WHO came up with in larger studies? Would these be the "colleagues" that Les Roberts said "HATE" (his words, not mine) the Americans? Why should we trust what they say? Why would Les Roberts trust them? Provide me with an INDEPENDENT source that verifies this claim about the doctors since the concern here is that Les Roberts and his "colleagues" have FABRICATED those death certificates they claimed they were provided in 92 percent of the 87% of the time they "remembered" to ask for proof of deaths CLAIMED by folks who probably didn't like Americans. Ask Les Roberts to tell us if these doctors were supposed to report the deaths to anyone else ... and if not, what is the purpose of a death certificate in Iraq? Show us proof of these graves. There should be some 550,000 of them (as of last year) if this is the latest explanation for the missing death certificates. Of course, that would be twice the number of bodies supposedly buried by Saddam in his mass graves so it should be relatively easy to show us proof that the landscape of Iraq is now covered with graves created since the invasion of Iraq. Where's the PROOF, scrapper? Surely you can come up with testimony from ONE of the many liberal-minded forensic types scouring Iraq for proof of Saddam's crimes. Surely ONE of them could be asked to document this genocide that America has committed that dwarfs the one Saddam reportedly committed. Surely ONE. (sarcasm). So 550,000 people haven't told the government their family member was killed so they could get their food ration. Now why didn't the doctors report the deaths? And how about these two doctors. Did Les Roberts ask them how many death certificates they issued but didn't report to the authorities? No? Again, Anbar cannot be used to explain the huge discrepancy. Because even Les Roberts isn't claiming half the population of that province is now dead. Or is he? ROTFLOL!
The following is Dr. Roberts' email response to my asking him about the differing number of death certificates that the LA Times discovered by contacting morgues and hospitals etc. as opposed to what his team found in their cluster sampling.
a) only ~40,000 deaths were recorded by the system in 2002. Thus, we think it was only about 30% complete before the war and what would make us think it would become more complete during the war?
b) As my Iraqi colleagues describe it, many doctors can issue death certificates
Especially in the smaller cities, people just need a certificate to put a body in a grave yard and just want that form from any doctor.
c) Two Iraqi doctors have heard me speak recently and came up after to point out that people have been getting food rations even in 2006. If a family reports a death officially, you lose that ration.
The UN pointed out that in July of last year the system recorded exactly 0 violent deaths in Anbar Province.
#152. To: BeAChooser, All (#150) (Edited)
I cut and pasted Dr. Roberts' email response to me in message #142. The grave yard death certificate procedure is addressed in his point b. I cut and pasted what is for public consumption in my correspondence with Dr. Roberts. P.S. Let me make this very clear to you, oozer, and I'll do so in no uncertain terms - my personal and professional information is confidential, strictly off limits, especially to a self-revealed lunatic like yourself so don't try to "trick" me into revealing my email address or my name or whatever you are sniffing around for. I told you what I asked him and I gave you his response. Eat it. ROTFLOL!
Prove it. Post the email you sent him and post the email he sent back.
#153. To: christine, innieway, ALL (#146)
Guess christine missed my post #145. That's what happens when you bozo yourself. And I'm equally certain she missed my side of the conversation in discussions with innieway. She sure has a lot of faith in innieway. ROTFLOL!
correct. only he himself thinks he "won." endurance he does have though. gotta give him that.
#154. To: RickyJ, ALL (#147)
Which link on this thread is dead, Ricky? I'd be happy to fix it if you only point out specifically which link is dead. You can do that, can't you? So Ricky, do you think your logic is sound when you say the ten thousand plus structural engineers, demolition experts and macro-world physicists in the world who have missed the fact that the WTC towers were brought down by explosives (and that would be virtually all of them) are "morons"? ROTFLOL!
Dead links are not sourced facts.
If your logic was sound you would sway more people and fewer would bozo you.
#155. To: christine, ALL (#149)
Ah, so you didn't bozo yourself after all. ROTFLOL!
blah, blah, blah. all i have to do is read one of your posts and i've read them all. it's the same crap you've posted for years.
#156. To: scrapper2, Les Roberts, ALL (#152)
And for that I thank you. But I would like to see specifically how you worded the question you ask him, since you claimed to have passed on MY questions. Maybe you could just pass on this, and see what he has to say: ****************** 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? **************** He can number his responses to match the numbering above. But do we believe what is just another claim? Does he have any documentary proof of it? For example, did he verify that the doctors who supposedly signed the death certificates provided as proof did indeed sign them? I have no interest at all in your personal and professional information. I just ask you to post the text of the email you sent to "Les" so we can see exactly what he was responding to in his email to you. Now why would you have a problem doing that?
I cut and pasted Dr. Roberts' email response to me in message #142.
The grave yard death certificate procedure is addressed in his point b.
.S. Let me make this very clear to you, oozer, and I'll do so in no uncertain terms - my personal and professional information is confidential,
#157. To: angle, ALL (#139)
Lets not forget: ROTFLOL... We've all had this response from him without "discussing the issue" which was posed, or answering the legitimate question.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.'
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#158. To: BeAChooser, ALL (#153)
FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. EVERYONE GO TO MY POST #143, THEN TO THE 2 LINKS IN THAT POST. THEY CAN JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES IF YOU MADE ANY EFFORT WHATSOEVER TO DISCUSS ANYTHING I POSED.
Guess christine missed my post #145. That's what happens when you bozo yourself. And I'm equally certain she missed my side of the conversation in discussions with innieway.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#159. To: christine (#133)
True.
he elicits good educational (and often witty) posts from everyone else. that's the only value he contributes
Israel is getting US into WWIII.
#160. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, angle, randge, christine, Minerva, innieway, SKYDRIFTER, Diana, Red Jones, Indie TX, BeALoser, Critter, Kamala, critter, Ricky J, Jethro Tull, robin, Honway, aristeides, bluedogtxn, leveller, Burkeman1, All (#156) (Edited)
a. It's Dr. Roberts to you, oozer, not Les. Please refer to Dr. Roberts with the respect and courtesy that his academic credentials demand. b. I told you what I asked him and I cut and pasted his reply in message #142. What do you think he was responding to, but the question I asked him ie. about death certificates and why his team's numbers differed from that of the LA Times. Do Dr. Roberts' remarks seem like he was responding to a question about his hair color or shoe size? c. You know what oozer, I'm not your servant, that's my "problem" with doing anything further for you. So no, I'm not going back into my email folder to cut and paste the exact wording of my message to Dr. Roberts. And no, I am not going to make a pest of myself by contacting Dr. Roberts yet again with more of your idiotic questions. Buy a clue, BAC, you are not worth his time and attention, nor mine either, frankly. You have worn out my patience reserves. I can barely be civil to you now. I have responded to you thusfar only because I hated to see you throw dust on the credibility of the JH's study and also because a significant number of 4um posters, whose opinions I respect, have expended THEIR energies and time on rebutting you on this particular thread. Get it, BAC? It's for THEIR benefit, not yours, that I contacted Dr. Roberts the first time. d. BAC, you have buried yourself. In the course of this discussion thread you have revealed yourself to be a sad little specimen of troll. Didn't they teach you at Troll School to keep your questions simple and few in number and your posts short? e. However, while on the subject of other 4um posters' benefit, here's the link to an 8 minute audio clip of a Randi Rhodes' interview with Dr. Roberts. It is excellent and I recommend it to all for your listening pleaure. Randi Rhodes starts off the interview with a sound bite from the doofusinchief about his take on findings of the JH's study. Then the interview moves on to the internationally respected credentialed professional, Dr. Roberts. Once you hear this interview, I guarantee there will be no question in your minds as to the crediblity of Dr. Roberts in contrast to the vacuousness of the other side. Enjoy! http://www.info rmationclearinghouse.info/article15275.htm "Randi Rhodes Interviews Dr. Les Roberts; co-author of the Johns Hopkins Iraq Mortality Study" 10/11/06
I have no interest at all in your personal and professional information. I just ask you to post the text of the email you sent to "Les" so we can see exactly what he was responding to in his email to you. Now why would you have a problem doing that?
#161. To: scrapper2 (#160)
That is worth repeating. Thanks for your efforts in posting the truth concerning this important matter.
. BAC, you have buried yourself. In the course of this discussion thread you have revealed yourself to be a sad little specimen of troll.
#162. To: honway, scrapper2 (#161)
That is worth repeating. Thanks for your efforts in posting the truth concerning this important matter. I second that.
. BAC, you have buried yourself. In the course of this discussion thread you have revealed yourself to be a sad little specimen of troll.
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#163. To: BeAChooser (#104)
YES, it WILL matter in the long run!!! This is the first truly intelligent thing I've EVER known you to say!!! It will matter because: The cronies you LOVE to support made an illegal invasion of another country, based upon lies, with a "benefit" in mind all along. And your support of them makes you implicit in the crime. There have been MANY of "these little ones" offended (I would certainly called maimed, orphaned, or killed as being "offended"), and in the judgment, YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!!!
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.
Luke 17:1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe [unto him], through whom they come! 2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#164. To: scrapper2 (#160)
i listened. the comment at the beginning by the Liar in Chief was impressive. not.
I guarantee there will be no question in your minds as to the crediblity of Dr. Roberts in contrast to the vacuousness of the other side.
#165. To: robin, all (#162)
BAC:What I object to is your claim that those five were setup to videotape "the first impact". You have NO PROOF whatsoever of that, honway. In case anyone needed confirmation of the sad little specimen of a troll description: The Record New Jersey News Five men detained as suspected conspirators By PAULO LIMA Staff Writer However, sources close to the investigation said they found other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot. "There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted," the source said. "It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park." Sources also said that bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further testing, authorities said. Sources said the van was stopped as it headed east on Route 3, between the Hackensack River bridge and the Sheraton hotel. As a precaution, police shut down Route 3 traffic in both directions after the stop and evacuated a small roadside motel near the Sheraton. Sources close to the investigation said the men said they were Israeli tourists, but police had not been able to confirm their identities. Authorities would not release their names. East Rutherford officers stopped the van after the FBI's Newark Field Office broadcast an alert asking surrounding police departments to look for a white Chevrolet van, police said. "We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side," said Bergen County Police Chief John Schmidig. "Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down." The East Rutherford officers summoned the county police bomb squad, New Jersey state troopers, and FBI agents, who waited alongside the van as prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office tried to obtain a warrant to search the van late Tuesday, Schmidig said. By 10 p.m., members of the bomb squad were picking through the van and X- raying packages found inside, Schmidig said. Sources said the FBI alert, known as a BOLO or "Be On Lookout," was sent out at 3:31 p.m. It read: "Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center. "Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals.
. In the course of this discussion thread you have revealed yourself to be a sad little specimen of troll.
#166. To: Ferret Mike (#11)
Hey, FM. What's up? Long time no read...
How many deaths will it take till he knows, that too many people have died?
#167. To: scrapper2 (#160)
Has BAC no dignity? With the ass kicking you've given him, I'd think he'd be in hiding.
#168. To: honway (#165)
well done, honway. see this is the kind of information which is being exposed because of the sad little specimen of a troll. ;)
#169. To: honway (#165)
Some more of those pesky facts BAC hopes we'll forget.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#170. To: IndieTX (#169)
sources close to the investigation said they found other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot. "There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted," the source said. "It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park." ---------------------------------------------------------- It does not get any clearer than that,imo.
#171. To: innieway, ALL (#158)
WTC 7: Silverstein's "Pull It" Explanation Examined (#426) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-26 13:51:15 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL WTC 7: Silverstein's "Pull It" Explanation Examined (#414) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-25 17:34:13 From: BeAChooser To: Red Jones, critter, innieway, all WTC 7: Silverstein's "Pull It" Explanation Examined (#412) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-25 17:29:25 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, Kamala, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#190) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-23 18:58:50 From: BeAChooser To: Diana, RickyJ, innieway, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#171) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-23 12:53:53 From: BeAChooser To: innieway 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#132) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 19:46:37 From: BeAChooser To: RickyJ, innieway, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#130) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 19:43:08 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#129) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 19:38:35 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#126) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 19:16:29 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#71) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 14:32:06 From: BeAChooser To: intotheabyss, innieway, robin, ALL 9/11 Truth: Steven Jones on WTC 7 and Controlled Demolition (#69) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-22 14:22:21 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#199) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-15 13:50:10 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#191) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-15 10:46:45 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#172) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-14 13:39:26 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#164) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-14 12:38:16 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, Diana, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#105) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-13 15:03:49 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#64) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-12 21:45:55 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#63) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-12 21:44:24 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11 (#39) [Full Thread] Post Date: 2007-02-11 17:52:32 From: BeAChooser To: innieway, ALL
FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. EVERYONE GO TO MY POST #143, THEN TO THE 2 LINKS IN THAT POST. THEY CAN JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES IF YOU MADE ANY EFFORT WHATSOEVER TO DISCUSS ANYTHING I POSED.
#172. To: honway (#170)
There were other MSM reported and verified stories of other Israeli "movers" caught on country roads at night in TN and elesewhere who were stopped for speeding, threw strange liquid vials out the window and the locals were forced by the feds to release them. Dogs even alerted to explosives on the trucks. TheStateInc KNOWS and they're 100% complicit and is actively attempting to cover it up..i.e. help these Israeli spies and agent provateurs.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#173. To: scrapper2 (#152)
Good choice. I'm can't understand why someone would spend so much time and energy at a site where no one is the least interested in his point of view. Furthermore it would be quite easy for him/her to email Les Roberts him/her self. However that would mean that Roberts would also have an email where the questions are coming from....
P.S. Let me make this very clear to you, oozer, and I'll do so in no uncertain terms - my personal and professional information is confidential, strictly off limits, especially to a self-revealed lunatic like yourself so don't try to "trick" me into revealing my email address or my name or whatever you are sniffing around for. I told you what I
#174. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2 (#137)
Prove it. And prove they issued anything close to 550,000 death certificates (the number missing). It's been proven, little troll, by someone who actually took the time and trouble to contact the author of the study instead of attacking him behind his back. a) only ~40,000 deaths were recorded by the system in 2002. Thus, we think it was only about 30% complete before the war and what would make us think it would become more complete during the war? b) As my Iraqi colleagues describe it, many doctors can issue death certificates.....thus it is not as if most bodies are going to morgues. Especially in the smaller cities, people just need a certificate to put a body in a grave yard and just want that form from any doctor.Physicians in Iraq can also issue death certificates in addition to governmental agencies.
#175. To: BeAChooser (#136)
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? Indirectly, they have. Directly, about one third of that. 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.
You want to play word games, that's ok with me x 9
Looser's getting punch-drunk. Right. All you do with your word games is demonstrate that you don't understand survey statistics and the meaning of a representative sample.
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
#176. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, honway, christine, robin, innieway, wbales, IndieTX, ALL (#160)
Does a liar deserve respect? Because I think that's what *Dr* Roberts may really be where this issue is concerned ... a liar who fabricated a result to fit a pre-conceived agenda. Or who at least allowed others to fabricate claims because they happened to fit his pre-conceived agenda. Does a democRAT deserve respect? (Les Roberts ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 in New York's 24th Congressional District.) Then he chose to basically ignore the issue. Because what he did amounts to nothing more than waving his hand and expect it all to go away. But it's not going to go away, scrapper. Offer some PROOF that Iraqi doctors operate/operated in the way he and you now claim explains the missing death certificates. The bottom line is that NONE of the explanations offered by AGAviator, you or *Dr* Roberts deals satisfactorily with the suspicious fact that 92 percent of Roberts' supposedly *random* sample were able to provide death certificates when death certificates seem to be in terribly short supply in Iraq when others look at the issue. The bottom line is that you have offered NO PROOF that the death rate throughout Iraq is at the levels claimed. It is simply absurd to claim that a slaughter has occurred in Iraq on a greater scale than occurred in even Nazi Germany during the allied bombing campaign of WW2, yet today's liberal US media, foreign media and insurgent media have all simply missed documenting it. It is absurd to claim we've killed as many Iraqis as died in Japan during WW2 ... when we firebombed and nuked Japanese cities with total impunity and without ANY concern for civilian lives. The bottom line is that it is simply absurd to claim a coverup of this proportion amongst those who are or have served in the US military in Iraq ... in this day and age where secrets can hardly be kept by half a dozen much less half a million. This assertion is just as silly as claiming thousands and thousands of structural engineers, demolition experts and other professionals with training and experience in steel, impact, fire, concrete, buckling, seismology and macro-world physics from around the world are "morons" who have missed what a theologian, philosopher or poet claims is OBVIOUSLY a controlled demolition. The bottom line is that you folks have so far chosen to simply ignore the many other contrary facts and logic problems I listed about the studies. For example, why do the pre-war mortality rates computed by equally reputable sources in larger studies differ so markedly from those obtained by John Hopkins in their studies? That difference alone could explain the disparity between JH's ridiculous estimates and those of everyone else who has estimated deaths during the conflict. The bottom line is that you folks can't explain why the mainstream media (who by all appearances is not friendly to this war, Bush or the GOP) recently blasted the news across the airwaves that a 100 were tragically dying a day in Iraq as if that had never happened before yet ignored the 550 Iraqis that Les Roberts and his group now claim have been dying on average every single day since day one of the invasion? How can the media have simply ignored the 10,000 Iraqis that statistically had to have died in a given day many times during that period if the John Hopkins' study is to be credible? The bottom line is that the mainstream media has been woefully derelict (due to rank partisanship) in asking Roberts and the other John Hopkins researchers to explain these tough questions about what looks to me and many others like a partisan hack job. Just like they were woefully derelict in pursuing the many crimes committed by the Clinton administration. But you are certainly free to be taken in by Roberts and the mainstream media. Randi Rhodes of Air America. You have to be kidding, scrapper. ROTFLOL! Go to Randi's website (http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/ )and you will find this statement: "The only real scientific study of civilian casualties in Iraq is at 654,965 as of July 2006." You see the problem? It's a LIE. After interviewing Les Roberts, how can Randi Rhodes be unaware that the John Hopkins researchers did not say the 654,965 dead were all civilians? And the title of the article linked to that statement ... "Updated Iraq Survey Affirms Earlier Mortality Estimates" is also a deception. Because the only earlier study affirmed by the lastest study is the earlier one done also by Les Roberts, which had its own serious problems (not the least of which was claims about death certificates). What is not mentioned is that the latest estimate is wildly at variance with half a dozen or so OTHER estimates. Sorry ... but clearly neither Randi Rhodes or John Hopkins is interested in spreading truth. They BOTH have an agenda. Folks, here's a very telling statement by Les Roberts during an interview with Joseph Choonara in 2005: "As far as I’m concerned the exact number of dead is not so important. It is many tens of thousands. Whether it’s 80,000 or 140,000 dead, it’s just not acceptable." Those aren't the word of a scientist sure of his figures. Those are the words of someone with an agenda. Turns out he's a democRAT with an agenda. Not to be trusted. Here is some more vacuousness for you to ignore, scrapper. ************ http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/0.php Iraq Body Count Press Release 16 October 2006 Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Introduction There has been enormous interest and debate over the newly published Lancet Iraqi mortality estimate of 655,000 excess deaths since the invasion, 601,000 of them from violence (and including combatants with civilians). Even the latter estimate is some 12 times larger than the IBC count of violent civilian deaths reported in the international news media, which stands at something under 50,000 for the same period (although the IBC figure for this period is likely to considerably increase with the addition of as yet unprocessed data). The new Lancet estimate is also almost the same degree higher than any official records from Iraq. This contrast has provoked numerous requests for comment, and these are our first observations. The researchers, and in particular their Iraqi colleagues who carried out the survey, should be commended for undertaking it under dangerous circumstances and with minimal resources. Efforts like theirs have consistently highlighted that much more could be done by official bodies, such as the US and UK governments, to assess the human suffering that has resulted from the invasion and occupation of Iraq. However, our view is that there is considerable cause for scepticism regarding the estimates in the latest study, not least because of a very different conclusion reached by another random household survey, the ILCS, using a comparable method but a considerably better-distributed and much larger sample. This latter study gave a much lower estimate for violent deaths up until April 2004, despite that period being associated with the smallest number of observed deaths in the latest Lancet study. Additionally, claims that the two Lancet studies confirm each other's estimates are overstated. Both the violent and non-violent post-invasion death estimates are actually quite different in the two studies. What emerges most clearly from this study is that a multi-methodological approach and much better resourced work is required. Substantially more deaths have occurred than have been recorded so far, but their number still remains highly uncertain. We also take the view that far more recognition should be accorded the many other courageous people in Iraq, be they Iraqi or international journalists, hospital, morgue, and other officials, or relief workers, who are endeavouring to keep the world informed on the country's plight. Far too many have had to pay the highest possible price for their efforts. Ignorance of this catastrophic war would be far less endemic if their day-by-day contribution were consistently given the exposure it merits. The daily toll on civilian lives resulting from the Iraq war should be front-page news in the countries that instigated it, not inside-page news. The Lancet estimate In October 2004 the Lancet published a random cluster sample survey estimating that 98,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the invasion up to that point (an 18-month period), and that 57,600 of these deaths were from violence. The October 2006 study comes from the same research team and provides an estimate for the 40-month period from March 2003 to June 2006 of 655,000 excess deaths, 601,000 of them from violence. The data presented do not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Since IBC's work is confined to violent civilian deaths, we make no further comment on Lancet's non-violent death estimates. The Lancet researchers visited 47 neighbourhoods and conducted interviews in 40 adjoining households in each neighbourhood. About 1,800 households containing 12,000 Iraqis were surveyed. These households reported a total of 302 violent deaths, each of which has been multiplied by two thousand to provide an estimate of how many of Iraq's estimated 26,000,000 population would have died if this proportion of deaths were representative of the country as a whole. The study's central estimate of 601,000 violent deaths is exceptionally high. Even its lower bound 95% confidence interval of 426,000 violent deaths is shockingly large. If numbers of this magnitude are anywhere near the truth, then they reveal a disaster far greater than most could have conceived, and one which appears inconsistent with a considerable amount of other information that has emerged over the last three and a half years. Before any firm conclusions are drawn on the basis of this study, five important (and extremely anomalous) implications of the data presented by the Lancet authors require examination. ************ http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/1.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Implication one: On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms. Between January and June 2006, there were 91 violent deaths recorded by the Lancet survey. This would correspond to over 180,000 deaths in the first 6 months of 2006, and an average rate of 1,000 per day. The daily death rate over the same period based on UN reports (which sum Baghdad morgue and Ministry of Health data) is 80 violent deaths per day. Cumulated media reports provide a somewhat lower figure. If the Lancet extrapolation is sound, this would imply a further 920 violent deaths every day (1000 minus 80) which have been recorded by neither officials nor the media. As these are averages, some days would see many more deaths, and others substantially fewer, but in either case, all of them would remain unnoticed. If we consider the Lancet's June 2005 – June 2006 period, whose violent toll it estimates at 330,000, then daily estimates become lower but would still require 768 unrecorded violent deaths for every 67 that are recorded. The IBC database shows that the average number of people killed in any one violent attack is five. Therefore it would require about 150 unreported, average-size, violent assaults per day to account for 768 deaths. It is unlikely that incidents of this scale would be so consistently missed by the various media in Iraq. Although IBC technically requires only two sources for every corroborated death in its database, we actually collect, archive and analyse every unique report we can find about each incident before it is added to our database. For larger incidents the number of reports can run into the dozens, including news published in English in the original and others, mostly the Iraqi press, published in translation. In IBC's news archive for August 2006 the average-size attack leaving 5 civilians killed has a median number of 6 reports on it. If, as our data suggest, smaller incidents are the ones that are most likely to be under-reported, then the number of "hidden" assaults implied by this study could be far greater. For instance, if the average number of people killed in each such assault were two, then the number of unreported deadly assaults would have to rise to 380 per day. One possible way of explaining such a very large number of small-scale unreported assaults is to suppose that many of these are the result of "secret" killings which have resulted from abduction, execution by gunfire, or beheading. But 42% of the 330,000 Lancet-estimated violent deaths in this final 13-month period are ascribed to "explosives/ordnance", car bombs, or air strikes, all of which carry a fairly heavy and hardly 'secret' toll (and will generally create at least 3 times as many wounded). The Lancet's 2005-2006 data generates an Iraqi average daily death toll of 350 from these explosions and air strikes, of which deaths only a small fraction are officially recorded or reported. More specifically, Lancet data suggests large numbers of deadly car bombings occurring on a daily basis, of which only a small fraction are ever reported (and whose victims, including injured, fail to be recorded by hospitals). Lancet estimates 150 people to have died from car bombs alone, on average, every day during June 2005-June 2006. IBC's database of deadly car bomb incidents shows they kill 7-8 people on average. Lancet's estimate corresponds to about 20 car bombs per day, all but one or two of which fail to be reported by the media. Yet car bombs fall well within the earlier-mentioned category of incidents which average 6 unique reports on them. 'Baghdad-weighting' of media reports, even if applicable to car bombs, is unlikely to account for this level of under-reporting, as half of the car bombs IBC has recorded have been outside Baghdad. The Pentagon, which has every reason to highlight the lethality of car bombs to Iraqis, records, on average, two to three car-bombings per day throughout Iraq, including those hitting only its own forces or causing no casualties, for the period in question. ************ http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/2.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Implication two: Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment. It may be argued that deaths often fail to be reported to authorities or registered by them (although information supplied by the Lancet authors themselves casts doubt on this argument - see Implication four below). However, people suffering injuries usually make strenuous efforts to receive appropriate treatment, or if they are severely incapacitated, others see to it that they do so. It is a long-established finding that around three times as many people are injured in modern wars as are killed in them. This is borne out in Iraq in statistics gathered by the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH). Their casualty monitoring centre was set up in Spring 2004 to allow the Ministry to allocate resources in response to conflict-related violence across Iraq (excluding the Kurdish-administered regions). The system is claimed to be manned 24 hours a day, with hospitals phoning the Ministry in Baghdad on a daily basis (when necessary) to report on dead and wounded from conflict-related violence, The MoH has reported 2.9 wounded for each person killed in the period from mid-2004 to mid-2006. An almost identical ratio was confirmed in IBC's independent analysis of media-derived data for the first two years after the invasion. If 600,000 people have died violent deaths, then the 3:1 ratio implies that 1,800,000 Iraqis have by now been wounded. This would correspond to 1 in every 15 Iraqis. Of course, death/injury ratios vary according to the weapons being used. Bombs and air strikes leave more wounded than does gunfire, but even the latter may cause widespread injury when it is indiscriminate, as it often is in gun-battles or in "defensive" fire by US troops who come under attack. By far the lowest proportion of injured are produced in the execution of captives, whether by guns or other means. We might therefore calculate a much more conservative estimate of wounded associated with the Lancet findings, based on the different proportions of weaponry reported in Table 4 of the Lancet paper. We assume 3 wounded for every explosive- or air strike-caused death, but only 1 wounded for every 2 gunfire deaths, and no wounded from the "unknown" and "accident" categories. This yields a revised Lancet-based estimate of 800,000 wounded over the equivalent period for which the MoH has been collecting this information centrally. In that same two-year period the official total of wounded treated in Iraqi hospitals is recorded as 59,372. Whether hospitals can provide a comprehensive tally of violent deaths or not, their knowledge of seriously injured should be much more complete. Accepting the Lancet estimate would entail concluding that at least 740,000 wounded Iraqis (90% of the total) were not treated or, if treated, not recorded in any way, throughout a 2-year period beginning in mid-2004. It may be that many injured anti-occupation combatants have avoided hospitals to prevent identification or arrest, but they are hardly likely to account for more than a small fraction of this discrepancy. It would further imply that approaching 90% of Lancet's deaths are also of combatants. In fact, even if one considers only the victims of car bombs as estimated in Lancet (who are a relatively small subset, and would have no reason to avoid - if they even had the capacity to do so - detection by authorities), then the 220,000 injured which would credibly accompany Lancet's estimates would far outstrip the 60,000 whom hospitals have recorded treating for injuries from all causes. This would be despite the existence of an ongoing, albeit imperfect, monitoring system specifically designed for such war-related casualty monitoring, one which emergency health service providers should have strong interest in maintaining in order to receive the necessary resources from the Health Ministry. ************* http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/3.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Implication three: Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq. Of the 287 violent post-invasion deaths recorded by the Lancet authors where the age and sex was known, 235 (82%) were adult males between 15 and 59 years old. Extrapolating to the population as a whole would mean that around 470,000 men in this age group have been killed violently, i.e. one in 15 (7%) of adult males aged 15 to 59. But that figure, horrific enough on its own, is only the national average. According to all accounts, including Lancet's, the intensity of violence differs widely across Iraq. The Lancet authors estimate at least a 5-fold difference in levels of violence between the lowest and the highest of the 16 Iraqi provinces sampled. In the provinces containing the highest violence - with a total population of 6.4 million – the Lancet-derived proportion of men killed would begin at one in 10, and rise from there (the study did not publish sufficient data to deduce what the maxima might be). This level of adult male decimation would not just apply to a few badly affected areas, but vast swathes of central Iraq representing around a quarter of the Iraq's population. *************** http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/4.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Implication four: Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued. In 87% of cases where deaths were reported, the survey team asked to see death certificates, leading to the Lancet authors' statement that "92% of households had death certificates for deaths they reported". Assuming, as the authors do, that this is representative of the population as a whole, would imply that officials in Iraq have issued approximately 550,000 death certificates for violent deaths (92% of 601,000). Yet in June 2006, the total figure of post-war violent deaths known to the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH), combined with the Baghdad morgue, was approximately 50,000. If the Lancet estimate is correct then it follows that either (a) 500,000 documented violent deaths, for which certificates were issued, have somehow managed to completely disappear without a trace to Iraqi officials or the international media or (b) there is a vast, elaborate, and very successful, cover up of this massive number of bodies and their associated paper trail being carried out in Iraq. A "suspicion" of option (b) is offered as one possible explanation in the supplementary notes to the Lancet report, but is not addressed in any detail. Option (a), however, is argued for explicitly. The authors write that: The above statement provides the sole evidentiary basis for the Lancet authors to dismiss as "expected" the factor-of-ten discrepancy between their estimates and statistics collected by the official monitoring system as it exists in Iraq. No one argues that Iraq's official figures are complete, including its officials. But could their coverage be so bad as to amount to no more than a small fraction of deaths, as suggested above? Two points need to be made here. First, despite the confidence with which the Lancet authors make the assertion, the natural death rate of 5/1,000/year is not an established fact for Iraq in 2002. It is one estimate, a projection or extrapolation from some smaller set of known data. It may be correct, or it may not be, and there can be considerable room for debate on the matter. Second, the figure of 40,000 claimed as the number of deaths recorded by the MoH in 2002 is false. No specific citation is offered by the Lancet authors for this figure other than a vague attribution to "informed sources in Iraq". But official Iraqi figures for 2002, forwarded to IBC courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, show that the Ministry registered 84,025 deaths from all causes in that year. This excluded deaths in the Kurdish-administered regions, which contain 12% or more of the population. Thus, the actual MoH figure for 2002, even while excluding Kurdistan, stands at 70% of the estimate of 120,000 that, per the Lancet authors, "should have been recorded" nation-wide in 2002. It may (or may not, given its post-2004 casualty monitoring system) be true that the "ministry's numbers are not likely to be more complete or accurate today". But if their completeness is even remotely similar to 2002 (the Ministry's equivalent 2005 figures record 115,785 deaths, an average of 320 per day), then we are still left with a vast and completely unexplained chasm between the actual official figures, what may reasonably be assumed about their past completeness based on documentary evidence, and the violent death estimate offered in this new Lancet report. *********** http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/5.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Implication five: The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "shock and awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja. According to Lancet calculations, Coalition forces killed 32,000 Iraqis from late March 2003 to the end of April 2004. This is a period that included the large-scale invasion in which 20,000 air strikes rained 30,000 bombs on a largely urbanized country along with an untold quantity of artillery, as well as an additional 240,000 cluster bombs. This type of assault was then repeated on a smaller but still significant scale in Falluja. All available evidence points to a significant and progressive reduction in Coalition military operations overall since the first year of the invasion. Yet, according to Lancet estimates, the number of Iraqis killed by the Coalition rose to 70,000 in year two (May 2004 – May 2005), and rose yet again in the third year (June 2005 – June 2006) to 86,000, nearly three times more than in year 1. When looking at US air strikes, the picture becomes even more puzzling. This data is comprised of 40 deaths: * 1 killed in January 2002-March 2003 (estimate: 2,000 killed); Those who keenly recall the reported carnage associated with the invasion in 2003 will scarcely credit the notion that similar events but of a much greater scale and extent have continued unremarked and unrecorded, including by locals, in a nation at the level of education and urbanisation of Iraq. Iraq is not an undeveloped society where tiny, self-sufficient communities live in isolation and ignorance of each other. Six thousand civilians were reported killed by Coalition forces in the first three weeks of the invasion, i.e., 285 per day. The Lancet estimate of 86,000 Iraqis killed by Coalition forces in the 13 months from 2005-2006 averages 217 per day over a much longer, relentlessly sustained period. And as shocking as such a secret toll would be, it is claimed to constitute only 26% of the even greater carnage inflicted by anti-Coalition or unattributable bombs and bullets, which it is claimed killed 330,000 Iraqis in this period, also almost always without being noticed by anyone but the victims. ****************** http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/6.php Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Concluding remarks Could five such shocking implications be true? If they were true, they would need to be the result of a combination of the following factors: We would hope that, before accepting such extreme notions, serious consideration is given to the possibility that the population estimates derived from the Lancet study are flawed. The most likely source of such a flaw is some bias in the sampling methodology such that violent deaths were vastly over-represented in the sample. The precise potential nature of such bias is not clear at this point (it could, for example, involve problems in the application of a statistical method originally designed for studying the spread of disease in a population to direct and ongoing violence-related phenomena). But to dismiss the possibility of such bias out of hand is surely both irresponsible and unwise. All that has been firmly documented as a result of the Lancet study is that some 300 post-invasion violent deaths occurred among the members of the households interviewed. This information, and the demographic and causative breakdowns presented in the study, are significant additions to the detailed knowledge that is painstakingly being accumulated about the individual victims of this conflict, and the tragedies that have befallen them. These 300 may be added to the roster of some 50,000 others for whom this level of detailed knowledge is available. In some - but still far too few - cases we know the name, ages, occupation, and exact circumstances of death. Information presented at this level of detail is the only way to arrive at once-for-all certainty, in a way that does justice to the victims, honours their memory, and provides the closure that only a full list, or census, can do satisfactorily. Do the American people need to believe that 600,000 Iraqis have been killed before they can turn to their leaders and say "enough is enough"? The number of certain civilian deaths that has been documented to a basic standard of corroboration by "passive surveillance methods" surely already provides all the necessary evidence to deem this invasion and occupation an utter failure at all levels. On 9/11 3,000 people were violently killed in attacks on the USA. Those events etched themselves into the soul of every American, and reverberated around the world. In December 2005 President George Bush acknowledged 30,000 known Iraqi violent deaths in a country one tenth the size of the USA. That is already a death toll 100 times greater in its impact on the Iraqi nation than 9/11 was on the USA. That there are more deaths that have not yet come to light is certain, but if a change in policy is needed, the catastrophic roll-call of the already known dead is more than ample justification for that change. Note for press and media. The Lancet researchers documented 300 violent deaths. Iraq has reached such a sorry state that IBC records 300 deaths every few days. Although comment of the sort offered here is sometimes necessary, it diverts our energies away from the main work to which we are committed, and to which still far too few are contributing. In light of this we regret that, at the current time, we have extremely limited capacity to undertake interviews with individual members of the press or media, and may be unable to deal with urgent requests. Full permission is granted to cite from this release, with appropriate attribution. ***************** Give it up, folks. The John Hopkins' report is CLEARLY bogus.
Please refer to Dr. Roberts with the respect and courtesy that his academic credentials demand.
b. I told you what I asked him and I cut and pasted his reply in message #142.
Randi Rhodes' interview with Dr. Roberts.
Once you hear this interview, I guarantee there will be no question in your minds as to the crediblity of Dr. Roberts in contrast to the vacuousness of the other side.
"Even with the death certificate system, only about one-third of deaths were captured by the government's surveillance system in the years before the current war, according to informed sources in Iraq. At a death rate of 5/1,000/year, in a population of 24 million, the government should have reported 120,000 deaths annually. In 2002, the government documented less than 40,000 from all sources. The ministry's numbers are not likely to be more complete or accurate today."
* 6 killed in March 2003-April 2004 (estimate: 12,000 killed);
* 13 killed in May 2004-May 2005 (estimate: 26,000 killed);
* 20 killed in June 2005-June 2006 (estimate: 40,000 killed).
* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.
#177. To: honway, ALL (#165)
Odd that the ONLY witness that has ever been named or quoted explicitly stated that she didn't start watching until AFTER the first impact and in her statement even says she noticed the men in the van after the impactS. By all means, honway, provide us with the name of the witnesses who called the authorities and said the men were set up and filming at the time of the first impact. I'll be waiting...
"Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center.
"Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals.
#178. To: Jethro Tull, ALL (#167)
Ping to #176. Let's see if you have a pithy response to that post, cheerleader.
Jethro Tull to scrapper2 - Has BAC no dignity? With the ass kicking you've given him, I'd think he'd be in hiding.
#179. To: AGAviator, ALL (#174)
Pay special attention to Implication Four in post #176. Roberts was deceiving you. That's not proof. It is an unsubstantiated CLAIM. And must I point out again that those Iraqi colleagues are the ones that Roberts himself said "HATE AMERICANS". My suspicion is they LIED to Roberts or he's making it up.
a) only ~40,000 deaths were recorded by the system in 2002. Thus, we think it was only about 30% complete before the war and what would make us think it would become more complete during the war?
b) As my Iraqi colleagues describe it, many doctors can issue death certificates.....thus it is not as if most bodies are going to morgues. Especially in the smaller cities, people just need a certificate to put a body in a grave yard and just want that form from any doctor.
#180. To: AGAviator, ALL (#175)
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.
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
#181. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#180)
One War Crime death is too much, BAC, you asshole!
#182. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2, AGAviator, honway, christine, robin, wbales, IndieTX, angle, randge, Diana, Red Jones, SKYDRIFTER, critter, Ricky J, Jethro Tull, bluedogtxn, leveller, Burkeman1, aristeides, Noone222, ALL (#176)
The bottom line is that even if there's only been 50,000 civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined - that's more than the combined deaths from all terrorist events WORDLWIDE SINCE 1968. Source: http://www.tkb.org/IncidentRegionModule.jsp Think about that one. How is this justified??? ESPECIALLY given that we have NO PROOF that the invasion of Iraq was justified for any reason, as there is NO PROOF of WMD's or that they were implicit in 9/11. And the MANY unanswered questions concerning 9/11 point to an "inside job". You mentioned the casualties in WW2... Seems to me that governments are responsible for more civilian deaths than "terrorists"... So who are the real terrorists??? Smirk is a Satanist asshole, and if you want to pledge your allegiance to him, you certainly have that right. Silly serf. Go back and reread my post # 163, then watch this... And this... Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. BAC, THE BOTTOM LINE IS I'm not putting you on BOZO, BUT "I'M DONE WITH YOUR SATANIST ASS (as evidenced by your fruits)... I WILL NOT REPLY TO YOU AGAIN.
The bottom line is that
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#183. To: innieway (#182)
Good decision. It's not productive to feed the troll.
#184. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#176) (Edited)
b. Because I think that's what *Dr* Roberts may really be where this issue is concerned ... a liar who fabricated a result to fit a pre-conceived agenda. Or who at least allowed others to fabricate claims because they happened to fit his pre-conceived agenda. c. Does a democRAT deserve respect? (Les Roberts ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 in New York's 24th Congressional District.) d. Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates a. I don't respect liars but you clearly do - for example, you adore goofyinchief, you quote a lyingneoconwhore like Kagan. You are the one who pays homage to liars, not me. b. Then put your claims in writing and send your letter to the President of Columbia U where Dr. Roberts is currently employed. Btw, if you admitted to being a lunatic ( you'll get no argument from any of us in that regard), it might be a defense against the libel lawsuit that is subsequently lodged against you by Dr. Roberts. c. How does Dr. Roberts running for office as a Democrat exclude the validity of the JH's study or its findings, whose data btw was collected by a "team" of medical professionals and whose findings were "peer reviewed" before being published in the notable medical journal called Lancet. I will explain peer review to you, BAC, in case a trailer park high school drop out like yourself has never come across that phrase in your Gun Digest reading. Peer review is defined as follows: "Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a process of subjecting an author's scholarly work or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the field." In other words other MEDICAL EXPERTS double checked the JH's study before publication. As for not trusting someone just because he's a Democrat - golly gee - our President is trusting and implementing some of the findings and recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report that was co-written by LEE HAMILTON, a high profile Democrat. Democrats can't be that untrustworthy if our President is listening to them. BAC, you do trust GWB's judgement, don't you? d. "Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates"...Here's something you may have missed BAC in your reading: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-iraq-deaths-study-was-valid-and- correct/2006/10/20/1160851135985.html "The Iraq deaths study was valid and correct" 10/21/06 Uh...here's the bottom line, BAC, 26 medical field professionals signed a petition attesting to the validity of the JH's study. So 26 credentialed medical professionals put their reputations on the line to support Dr. Roberts and Dr. Burnham.
a. Does a liar deserve respect?
#185. To: innieway, ALL (#182)
ROTFLOL!
BAC, THE BOTTOM LINE IS I'm not putting you on BOZO, BUT "I'M DONE WITH YOUR SATANIST ASS (as evidenced by your fruits)... I WILL NOT REPLY TO YOU AGAIN.
#186. To: scrapper2, ALL (#184)
Peer reviewed? By an organization that failed to address the issues of the pre-invasion mortality rates (keep in mind that the Lancet had previously blessed the UN and WHO rates that are day and night different than JH's)? By an organization that failed to address the discrepancies in death certificates evident even after the first study was published? By an organization that admitted it fast tracked the review process in order to get the paper into print before an election to influence it against the war? By an organization that published the first report under a heading on its own website that said 100,000 CIVILIANS killed in Iraq (when the report specifically says it didn't ask those surveyed whether the claimed dead were civilians or not)? By reviewers who didn't bother to even ask why there was NO physical evidence or documentary evidence to support a claim of mass genocide? And one more thing, the data was not collected by a team of medical professionals. The Iraqis hire to conduct Roberts first study most certainly weren't doctors or statisticians and Roberts admitted they HATED Americans. Why that's guaranteed to get good results. ROTFLOL! Actually, no. I stopped trusting him when he "moved on" where the Clinton Administration crimes are concerned. Did any of them address the issues I've mentioned? Wonder if they are all democRATS. ****************** From http://www.aqoul.com/archives/2006/10/iraq_the_mortal.php ... snip ... If the Lancet study is true, something like 9 out of 10 Iraqi war deaths over the past few years simply missed the press. In one of the most well-covered conflicts in history. Deaths equal to or more than that induced by entire firepower among frontline combatants through the whole US civil war, and it made less sound than the proverbial tree in the forest. Car bombs have been slaughtering countless times and no one went to the hospital, but they did get their death certificates! About 3-5 Hiroshimas have happened and it failed to make the press. Darn that MSM-Fox News-Al Jazeera conspiracy. ... snip ... A better argument is to ask how in less than half the time, Iraq has experienced violent war death, mostly civilian, at a rate close to the high-end range of deaths for BOTH SIDES in the Iran-Iraq war, including all front-line troops? (It's actually a much higher rate than it first appears because you have to view that long war's casualty figure as a proportion of both Iraq and Iran's populations and the high-end war deaths from that war are therefore quite a lower rate per affected population than that alleged in the Lancet study to Iraq alone.)" A good clue about the bad smell, aside from political orientation or biases is that in the first study, the raw data showed 2/3 of an estimated 100,000 deaths occurring in Fallujah alone. ("Two-thirds of all violent deaths [March 2003-September 2004] were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja. ") 60,000 dead in one place by the numbers publicized with that study. They then simply dismissed the Falluja figure as an "outlier"; instead they should have revisited the entire study for obvious fundamental flaws. Now in this study today, a death toll equal to up to about 10 American attacks on Fallujah is bandied about but it must have gone by simply unnoticed by all real time observers of Iraq. ... snip ... Meanwhile let Iraq Body count have its say (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php) A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that: 1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms; 2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment; 3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq; 4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued; 5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja. And this: If these assertions are true, they further imply: * incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began; * bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis; * the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas; * an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year. In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy. ... snip ... And let's let some experts have their say, if you like that sort of thing, and in the New York Times: "Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy. . said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country. Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had “a tone of accuracy that’s just inappropriate.”" UPDATE: A commentary in the Wall Street Journal Online by Steve Moore goes into substantive issues. I suspect he may have a point. "I contacted Johns Hopkins University and was referred to Les Roberts, one of the primary authors of the study. Dr. Roberts defended his 47 cluster points, saying that this was standard. I'm not sure whose standards these are. Appendix A of the Johns Hopkins survey, for example, cites several other studies of mortality in war zones, and uses the citations to validate the group's use of cluster sampling. One study is by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used 750 cluster points. Harvard's School of Public Health, in a 1992 survey of Iraq, used 271 cluster points. Another study in Kosovo cites the use of 50 cluster points, but this was for a population of just 1.6 million, compared to Iraq's 27 million. When I pointed out these numbers to Dr. Roberts, he said that the appendices were written by a student and should be ignored. Which led me to wonder what other sections of the survey should be ignored." ... snip ... ******************
How does Dr. Roberts running for office as a Democrat exclude the validity of the JH's study or its findings, whose data btw was collected by a "team" of medical professionals and whose findings were "peer reviewed"
As for not trusting someone just because he's a Democrat - golly gee - our President is trusting and implementing some of the findings and recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report that was co-written by LEE HAMILTON, a high profile Democrat. Democrats can't be that untrustworthy if our President is listening to them. BAC, you do trust GWB's judgement, don't you?
So 26 credentialed medical professionals put their reputations on the line to support Dr. Roberts and Dr. Burnham.
#187. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, robin, christine, All (#186) (Edited)
Who do you trust, BAC? a. You don't trust Dr. Roberts because he is a Democrat. We don't know the political affiliations of Dr. Birnham, the co-author, or the JH's research team as a whole who worked on the research team. Do you think they are all "Democrats?" b. You don't trust the Lancet or the Lancet peer review committee of medical experts who reviewed the methodology and findings of the JH's study. c. You don't trust the 26 independent medical professionals who signed a petition in support of Dr. Roberts and Dr. Burnham, dramatically/pointedly putting their own considerable reputations on the line. d. Finally, you don't trust President George W Bush anymore. So I guess it means you don't trust our President's words when GWB says the findings of the JH's study have been discredited? http://www.info rmationclearinghouse.info/article15275.htm "Randi Rhodes Interviews Dr. Les Roberts; co-author of the Johns Hopkins Iraq Mortality Study" Broadcast : 10/11/06 Air America - Audio- Runtime 8 Minutes e. On that last point you and I finally come to full agreement. When an untrustworthy guy like GWB claims the results of the JH's study are not to be believed, indeed, that's the best endorsement of the study's validity. Cheers, BAC! I'll drink to that.
Actually, no. I stopped trusting him [ President GWB] when he "moved on" where the Clinton Administration crimes are concerned.
#188. To: innieway (#182)
Good for you (putting him on bozo). Dump his Zionist, blood dancing ass.
ESPECIALLY given that we have NO PROOF that the invasion of Iraq was justified for any reason
#189. To: innieway, BeAChooser, scrapper2, AGAviator, honway, christine, robin, wbales, IndieTX, angle, randge, Diana, Red Jones, SKYDRIFTER, critter, Ricky J, Jethro Tull, bluedogtxn, Burkeman1, aristeides, Noone222, ALL (#182)
HOLOCAUST DEATH TOTALS OVERESTIMATED, SAYS HITLER DRESDEN FIREBOMBING NOT SO BAD, SAYS ROOSEVELT HIROSHIMA DEATH TOLL OVERBLOWN, SAYS TRUMAN IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS NOT QUITE AS HIGH AS WE'D LIKE, SAYS BUSH
The bottom line is that even if there's only been 50,000 civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined - that's more than the combined deaths from all terrorist events WORDLWIDE SINCE 1968
#190. To: innieway (#182)
right on
BAC, THE BOTTOM LINE IS I'm not putting you on BOZO, BUT "I'M DONE WITH YOUR SATANIST ASS (as evidenced by your fruits)... I WILL NOT REPLY TO YOU AGAIN.
#191. To: innieway, SKYDRIFTER, Jethro Tull, scrapper2, AGAviator, Kamala, Diana, leveller (#182)
it's actually enjoyable to read everyone else's posts with BeAChooser bozo'd. ;)
#192. To: leveller, All (#189)
HOLOCAUST DEATH TOTALS OVERESTIMATED, SAYS HITLER DRESDEN FIREBOMBING NOT SO BAD, SAYS ROOSEVELT HIROSHIMA DEATH TOLL OVERBLOWN, SAYS TRUMAN IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS NOT QUITE AS HIGH AS WE'D LIKE, SAYS BUSH Bump. Exquisite, leveller!
"The bottom line is that even if there's only been 50,000 civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined - that's more than the combined deaths from all terrorist events WORDLWIDE SINCE 1968"
#193. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, robin, christine, All (#187)
Actually, that's Gilbert Burnham, and yes we do know his political affiliation. He's a democRAT too. Burnham gave $900 to Roberts' Congressional run. According to http://www.postwatchblog.com/2006/10/if_you_liked_ou.html, Gil Burnham stated in an interview with The World Today before the study even began that, "we wouldn't go to the effort of doing something like this if we didn't feel that here was a situation that was egregious and, you know, there really needs to be some attention to what we can do to better protect the civilians." In other words, he had already decided on the conclusion. That source goes on to note "The political intent of the paper is also clear from a statement that "Coalition forces have been reported as targeting all men of military age," referring to two newspaper articles, one of them about a single soldier. Apart from bizarrely citing a newspaper article as a source in a supposedly reputable journal, the authors are not only saying that there are "reports"--they are implying that these reports tie the coalition forces to execution-style killings and assassinations. At the end of the article, the authors go on to suggest that the coalition is in violation of the Geneva Conventions without making any references. It is rare to detect political passion in a scientific publication." ********** http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2006/10/science_exit_le.html#more "Just using Occam's Razor here, you can believe either: 1. A small team of researchers, two of which are American Democrats who oppose the war in Iraq, have stated for the record that they wished to influence a US election, who carried out a survey in Iraq only under their own supervision; and a vast conspiracy by Iraqi authorities to hide 500,000 death certificates. 2. That the small team of researchers either deliberately made up data, cooked the methodology to ensure urban areas were overrepresented, calculated their numbers incorrectly, and willingly misled the Lancet peer reviewers and the world public; and have confidence in the thousands of people working for the Iraqi government in morgues and government offices all over the country of Iraq. Occam's Razor says #2. Sorry guys. I'm not into believing the whole "vast government conspiracy conducted by thousands of individuals and miraculously kept secret" type of thing. I'm more into believing the "small group of political partisans conduct a sham of a study to influence world opinion and a US Congressional election". ************** Well, I can't imagine the Iraqis who actually collected the data are democRATS although they (according to Roberts) HATE Americans. But here are the other members of the team, starting with the authors listed in the first JH study (the 100,000 one), in addition to Roberts and Burnham: Riyadh Lafta - He's an Iraqi, therefore unlikely a democRAT. He's the one Roberts relied on to recruit the Iraqi interviewers on the team ... the ones Roberts later said mostly HATE Americans. Given that, I somehow doubt Riyadh likes us either. Richard Garfield - I don't know his political affiliation but in this interview about the first study ( http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=440) he said "And here you see that deaths recorded in the Baghdad morgue were, for a long period, around 200 per month." Isn't he a little surprised to learn they were dying at the rate of 550 a day throughout Iraq and no one noticed? He said "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." He's either unfamiliar with his own study or he's being sloppy because only 2 out of 30 households in each cluster were even asked to provide certificates in the first study (they didn't ask the ones they thought were hostile to the US and who might have the most reason to lie). Oh and by the way, Richard Garfield is one of those who advocated infant mortality statistics before the war that are widely divergent from those derived using the John Hopkins interviews. So why doesn't he ask Roberts for explanation regarding this disparity? Jamal Khudhairi - You tell me. I can't find anything about him. That goes for the authors listed in the second study (the 655,000 one): Shannon Doocy and Elizabeth Dzeng. But I bet the odds are better than 2 to 1 that all three are liberal leaning. Not only that, many of those who have been quoted praising the studies are also democRATS. For example, Ronald Waldman (an epidemiologist at Columbia University), who was quoted in the WP praising the study, gave $3000 to John Kerry's campaign. He gave another $1000 to Les Roberts' campaign (http://www.thepoliticalpitbull.com/2006/10/report_65500_iraqi_civilians_h.php ). No, I don't and I told you exactly why. My complaints probably have something to do with the influence of Lancet Editor Richard Horton, who wrote the fervent "Commentary" to the article and whose anti-Iraq war views are, if anything, MORE strident than those of Burnham and Roberts. Yes, they have. I wonder if they will come to regret it. **************** Lancet study of Iraqi deaths is statistically unsound and unreliable By StatGuy Earlier this week, British medical journal The Lancet published a study estimating that, since the US-led invasion in March 2003, almost 655,000 Iraqis have died who would not have died had the invasion not occurred. That estimate is far above previous estimates of post-invasion Iraqi deaths, which generally range between 40,000 and 120,000. Immediately, the study received widespread attention and generated a great deal of controversy in the media, in the halls of government, and around the blogosphere. The article is entitled “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey” by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts. Drs Burnham, Doocy, and Roberts are affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and Dr Lafta with the Mustansiriya University, Baghdad. The full text is available here in html, and here as a pdf document. (All page references to the study in this post refer to the pdf version.) I put on my professional statistician's hat and had a good long look at the study. In my opinion, it is statistically unsound and unreliable. The study violates the basic principle of good statistical practice by relying on a non-random sample survey. Also, the article's description of survey operations raises reliability, and perhaps even credibility, questions. The study is based on a sample survey conducted between May and July of this year utilising a cluster sample methodology. Cluster sampling is a multi-stage procedure to select sample respondents. In the first stage, clusters, or small areas, of the region (in this case, Iraq) to be surveyed are selected. Within the clusters, neighbourhoods are selected, and then main streets; finally, particular residences are chosen and surveyed. (More details are given below.) Forty-seven clusters were selected in proportion to the population of 16 of the country's 18 Governorates. (Originally, 50 clusters were to be surveyed representing all Governorates, but operational problems necessitated omission of three.) Within each of the clusters, administrative units and main streets were chosen at random in proportion to population; then particular residential streets were chosen at random where households were surveyed. The plan was to interview forty households per cluster but, due to the vagaries of field operations under potentially dangerous conditions, fewer than 40 households were surveyed in some clusters. Thus, a sample of 1849 households with an average of 6.9 persons per household were surveyed, comprising a total of 12,801 individuals. Here arises a problem with the purported randomness of the cluster selection. According to the methodology as just outlined, all of the 47 clusters were located in urban areas. Rural areas do not have “streets or blocks” as such, nor do they have residential streets with 40 adjacent households. According to the study’s own documentation, every cluster was located in an urban area; none was selected in a rural area. According to the UN's 2004 Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), however, 7,132,000 of Iraq's total population of 27,132,000 live in rural areas. (See Table 1.6 on page 22 [numbered 21] of this pdf document.) Some 26% of Iraq's population live in rural areas, but not one of the 47 clusters was located in a rural area. The probability that, if a true random selection were made, all 47 clusters would be chosen from urban areas is 74% raised to the 47th power—a very small number indeed. It would appear that an a priori decision was made to exclude rural areas from consideration as cluster sites. In that case, the selection of sample respondents was not random. There are, I would think, good reasons for believing that armed conflict in urban areas is likely to kill more people than armed conflict in rural areas, other things being equal. It is therefore probable that the Lancet survey, because it includes only urban residents, is biased toward producing an overestimate of deaths. Serious questions are also raised by the description of field operations, according to which the survey went smoother than any survey I’ve ever heard of. There were two survey teams, each consisting of two female and two male interviewers, and one supervising field manager. The survey was in the field between 20 May and 10 July 2006. Survey respondents were chosen according to the procedure outlined above. Once a particular residential street was selected within an administrative unit within a cluster, a start household on the street was chosen at random. Beginning with that household, the interview team proceeded to survey adjacent households until forty were done. Here’s an outline of the survey content. Now check this summary of field operations: The interview team went to 1849 households in urban areas of Iraq and encountered only 15 refusals and only 16 residences where neither the head of the household nor a spouse was in. Don’t forget that they only went to each household once: there was no follow-up whatever. If I ran a door-to-door survey with a response rate of 98.3% on the first go-round, I’d think I’d died and gone to statisticians’ heaven. That is nothing short of miraculous. That response rate implies that family heads in urban Iraq are virtually always at home. Don’t heads of households and their spouses in urban Iraq have jobs? Don't they go out to meet friends? Do they never visit relatives in other neighbourhoods or towns? Do they not engage in any activities outside their homes? Are they never in the middle of a family meal and don’t want to be interrupted by unknown visitors asking intrusive personal questions? Never out shopping for groceries or passing the time of day at a local coffee shop or dropping off the family car at the mechanic’s? Do they just stay around the house all day every day? In short, do those folks living in urban Iraq have any semblance of normal lives? I realise that armed conflict would impel most people to huddle in their homes behind locked doors (in which case they would be unlikely to open the door to strangers), but that possibility doesn’t enter into it because the locations selected for interview were altered if they appeared unsafe. Admittedly, I have no personal experience of daily life in Iraq. Nevertheless, the 98.3% initial response rate is foreign, not just to my experience, but to any real-world survey situation imaginable. Here's another strange remark about this survey's field operations: According to the summary of the survey content, quoted above, there’s a lot of ground to cover in each interview. Locate the head of household or spouse (fortunately, 99.1% of ‘em were at home when the interviewers showed up), and obtain oral consent. List by age and sex everyone living there now and everyone who lived there on a particular date over four years ago. Find out what happened to each of them and when, and write it all down. Focus on the ones who had died: find out the cause and circumstances of death; then ask to see the death certificate. If they have one (as 92% did), have them dig it out so the interviewer can take a good look at it. If there’s a discrepancy between the official cause of death and the one reported by the interviewee, hash that out. (The more I think about all that, the more unlikely that 0.8% refusal rate seems.) Suppose each survey team is working 10-hour days. Even that’s pushing it because survey operations must be conducted with a view to finding respondents at home and willing to talk. (But apparently that's not a problem in urban Iraq.) That’s an average of four surveys per hour, i.e., one every fifteen minutes. Granted some interviews would be short: a husband and wife living alone for the past five years would only take a few minutes. Since the average household has over six members, however, interviews are much more likely to be lengthy. Also, the interviewers need meal and other breaks. The assertion that 40 households could be interviewed in one day strains credibility. Another discrepancy in the article’s description of operations raises the disturbing possibility that the survey could have been tainted by surveyor bias. Here’s the methodological description of the selection of respondent households. An administrative unit within the cluster was chosen at random, a main street within the administrative unit was chosen at random, a residential street crossing the main street was chosen at random, and a start household on the residential street was chosen at random. The interview team has no discretion whatever in the selection of survey respondents, with one exception (as already cited above): The article doesn’t say how often the interview team exercised its discretion to change to an alternate location. To me, that is a serious omission, unless we are to understand that this never, or rarely, happened. In any case, no instances are reported of interviewers coming under fire or other threat, so that would appear to have been a very unusual circumstance. Why then does this statement appear in the article? How could interviewers be “drawn” to particular houses if the selection of households was driven by a completely random process, except when interviewers felt insecure or otherwise at risk? The quoted statement doesn’t make sense in the context of what is supposed to be random choice of particular streets and households. It only raises further serious doubts about the sample selection process. There are many other problems with the Lancet study that could be discussed. What I’ve presented here, however, is more than sufficient to demonstrate that the survey behind the estimate of “excess” deaths was statistically unsound because biased by non-random selection of interview respondents. Moreover, the article’s description of survey field operations is, in the absence of further supporting documentation, highly problematic. In my judgment, the estimate of 655,000 deaths lacks solid foundation and therefore should not be relied upon. **************** http://magicstatistics.com/2006/10/18/lancet-researchers-ignored-superior-study-on-iraqi-deaths/ Lancet researchers ignored superior study on Iraqi deaths By StatGuy The Lancet article published online 11 October replicated, with a somewhat larger sample size, a 2004 study, also published in The Lancet and also done by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Medical School. Yet the researchers ignored a United Nations survey of Iraqis, conducted about the same time as the first Lancet survey, that found very different results. The 2004 Lancet article estimated that, between the US-led invasion of March 2003 and September 2004, 98,000 Iraqis died who would not have died had the invasion not occurred. The estimate had a 95% confidence interval of 8,000 - 194,000 deaths and was based on a cluster sample made up of 33 clusters of 30 households each for a total sample size of 988 households. (In one or two clusters, the full complement of households was not surveyed.) The United Nations conducted its Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS) between April and August 2004. As its name implies, the survey was aimed at gathering data on a broad spectrum of indicators of living conditions about one year after Saddam Hussein was deposed. Measures surveyed related to housing, infrastructure, demographics, child health, nutrition, education, condition of women, labour market activity, income and wealth, etc. Because the ILCS was a much more comprehensive survey, its findings were not published until March 2005, several months after the 2004 Lancet article. The ILCS also produced an estimate of deaths since the invasion, but it was much lower than that published in the 2004 Lancet article. The estimate is discussed on p. 55 of the Analytical Report of the ILCS (pdf). Although the ILCS estimate of 24,000 is far below the 2004 Lancet estimate of 98,000, there is a statistical sense in which they are not inconsistent, for the huge confidence interval of the Lancet estimate (8,000 - 194,000) easily encompasses the ILCS estimate's confidence interval (18,000 - 29,000). Statistically, however, one would conclude that the ILCS estimate is to be preferred because of its much smaller confidence interval, other things being equal. The reason the confidence intervals differ so much in width is because the two estimates are based on different sample sizes. Both surveys used a cluster methodology of sample selection, but with different numbers of clusters and different number of households surveyed within each cluster. The Lancet survey selected 33 clusters from all of Iraq and then surveyed 30 households within each cluster. In the event, a total of 988 households were sampled. The ILCS selected 110 clusters from 17 of Iraq's 18 Governorates, with an additional 330 clusters from the remaining Governorate of Baghdad. Within each of the 2200 clusters, 10 households were surveyed. After removing six clusters due to operational considerations, the total sample size was 21,940 households. The ILCS used over 66 times as many clusters and surveyed over 22 times as many households as did the Lancet survey. No wonder the ILCS's confidence interval was much more precise. Based on the accompanying documentation, the ILCS was far superior to the Lancet survey across the whole gamut of survey operations. I won't go into details here, but those interested are referred to "Appendix 2: Technical Characteristics of the Living Conditions Survey Sample", found on pages 169-170 of the ILCS Analytical Report. Despite the obvious superiority of the ILCS to the 2004 Lancet survey, the 2006 Lancet article contains no discussion of the ILCS or its estimate of Iraqi deaths between March 2003 and August 2004. This I found odd. Articles in academic and professional journals that address topics of controversy generally include references to previously published studies and discuss the perspective the current article takes vis-à-vis the views and findings of those earlier studies. That is how scientific knowledge advances—by critically engaging published findings of other scholars and specialists. The authors of the 2006 Lancet article, however, appear uninterested in critical engagement with the ILCS estimate of Iraqi deaths. Yet we know that the Lancet researchers are aware of the ILCS, for they refer to it twice in their footnotes. The first page mentions "surveys that assessed the burden of conflict on the population" and the fact that "insufficient water supplies, non-functional sewerage, and restricted electricity supply . . . create health hazards", and for these the ILCS is footnoted. But as for critical discussion of the enormous difference between the ILCS estimate of deaths and the estimates generated from both Lancet surveys, the authors don't want to touch that. They don't even acknowledge its existence. As I said, in my experience scientific knowledge is not built up by ignoring previous relevant studies, especially ones that differ so radically from one’s own study. That the researchers behind the 2006 Lancet article did so reinforces the belief that their real agenda is not scientific knowledge but advocacy. *************** http://magicstatistics.com/2006/10/22/main-street-bias-in-lancet-study/ “Main street bias” in Lancet study By StatGuy One of the joys of blogging for me is interacting with people I'd never have met otherwise. My posts on the Lancet study of Iraqi deaths (background here) have afforded many opportunities for that. One in particular prompts this post. On Friday I received an e-mail from Sean Gourley, a physicist at the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, who has just co-authored a critical review of the Lancet study. He has graciously allowed me to report on his findings. His fellow researchers on this project are Neil Johnson, also in the Oxford Dept of Physics, and Michael Spagat of the Dept. of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London. As I pointed out in this post, the Lancet survey included only residents of urban areas, thus introducing significant bias into the results. Mr Gourley and his co-researchers argue that the survey methodology also excludes many urban residents, making bias problems even worse. The problem is what they call “main street bias”. The Lancet surveyors selected clusters by randomly choosing administrative units within Iraq’s Governorates in proportion to population. Then: Only residential streets crossing a “main street” were eligible for selection. Urban areas typically contain residential streets that do not cross a main street; but the methodology ruled them out. Such streets could never be selected for surveying. The map below, sent by Mr Gourley, shows a section of Oxford, UK. (The traffic circle near the top left corner is just across a short bridge from Magdalen College at the end of High Street, so it is only a few minutes’ walk from the centre of Oxford.) Three main streets are marked by the three black arrows; each street that does not cross one of them is marked by a red arrow. So, if the Lancet methodology were to be implemented in this section of Oxford, there would appear to be hundreds of households who could never be selected for surveying. Generally speaking, armed conflict is more common in or near main streets than in side streets. Certainly, given typical traffic patterns, conflict on main streets is likely to endanger more people. So, excluding streets that do not cross main streets would tend to result in overestimation of casualties. Thus, "main street bias". The crucial question becomes: How exactly did the Lancet surveyors define main streets? That question was put to lead author Gilbert Burnham, epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, by the Oxford-Royal Holloway researchers. According to an article in Science (behind a subscriber wall, but Sean Gourley sent me a copy), Prof Burnham had two different, and apparently contradictory, answers. Every time I read a Lancet co-author defend that article, it just gets worse. If Prof Burnham doesn’t “know exactly how the Iraqi team conducted its survey”, how can he know whether the methodological description is oversimplified or not? Not only that, he admits that data have already been destroyed. To call this bad statistical practice is putting it mildly. Statisticians I know could be reprimanded or even lose their jobs if they destroyed data only a few months after a survey, especially one they knew ahead of time would generate public controversy. In my experience, it is standard procedure to store all survey materials in a secure location for an absolute minimum of three years—and, in practice, usually longer. Speaking of secure locations, it sounds like the Iraqi surveyors didn’t have one. If they really had no safe place to store completed surveys, they should not have gone out and gathered the data—and not just because of the potential consequences for interviewees if confidential information is leaked. No: the real issue here is the professionalism of the surveyors. Professional surveyors and statisticians take whatever steps are necessary ahead of time to ensure that confidentiality will be protected. If they couldn’t do that, they had no business going into the field in the first place. Now that essential information has been destroyed, there is no way of verifying Burnham’s claim that all streets, not only those crossing main streets, were included in the sample frame. Failing to ensure that data, analysis, and results can be independently verified is another indication of unprofessional statistical practice. I’m not the only one who’s irritated that the controversy over the Lancet article’s methodology has turned into a circus. Fred Kaplan at Slate has also had difficulty getting a straight answer from Gilbert Burnham about his study. Mr Kaplan concludes: I, too, would be very happy to see a thorough evaluation by independent experts—including statistical methodologists, not just the epidemiologists who seem to be running this little show. The only problem is that essential background information has been destroyed—or was never collected in the first place—so it may already be too late for that. ****************** Give it up, scrapper. The John Hopkins studies on Iraq mortality are BOGUS.
We don't know the political affiliations of Dr. Birnham, the co-author,
or the JH's research team as a whole who worked on the research team. Do you think they are all "Democrats?"
b. You don't trust the Lancet or the Lancet peer review committee of medical experts who reviewed the methodology and findings of the JH's study.
c. You don't trust the 26 independent medical professionals who signed a petition in support of Dr. Roberts and Dr. Burnham, dramatically/pointedly putting their own considerable reputations on the line.
[S]election of survey sites was by random numbers applied to streets or blocks . . . [p. 2]
The survey purpose was explained to the head of household or spouse, and oral consent was obtained. Participants were assured that no unique identifiers would be gathered. No incentives were provided. The survey listed current household members by sex, and asked who had lived in this household on January 1, 2002. The interviewers then asked about births, deaths, and in-migration and out-migration, and confirmed that the reported inflow and exit of residents explained the differences in composition between the start and end of the recall period. Separation of combatant from non-combatant deaths during interviews was not attempted, since such information would probably be concealed by household informants, and to ask about this could put interviewers at risk. Deaths were recorded only if the decedent had lived in the household continuously for 3 months before the event. Additional probing was done to establish the cause and circumstances of deaths to the extent feasible, taking into account family sensitivities. At the conclusion of household interviews where deaths were reported, surveyors requested to see a copy of any death certificate and its presence was recorded. Where differences between the household account and the cause mentioned on the certificate existed, further discussions were sometimes needed to establish the primary cause of death. [p. 2]
In 16 (0·9%) dwellings, residents were absent; 15 (0·8%) households refused to participate. [p. 4]
Decisions on sampling sites were made by the field manager. The interview team were given the responsibility and authority to change to an alternate location if they perceived the level of insecurity or risk to be unacceptable. [p. 2]
One team could typically complete a cluster of 40 households in 1 day. [p. 4]
The third stage consisted of random selection of a main street within the administrative unit from a list of all main streets. A residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street. On the residential street, houses were numbered and a start household was randomly selected. From this start household, the team proceeded to the adjacent residence until 40 households were surveyed. For this study, a household was defined as a unit that ate together, and had a separate entrance from the street or a separate apartment entrance. [p. 2]
The interview team were given the responsibility and authority to change to an alternate location if they perceived the level of insecurity or risk to be unacceptable. [p. 2]
Although interviewers used a robust process for identifying clusters, the potential exists for interviewers to be drawn to especially affected houses through conscious or unconscious processes. Although evidence of this bias does not exist, its potential cannot be dismissed. [p. 7, footnote omitted]
The number of deaths of civilians and military personnel in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion is another set of figures that have raised controversy. The ILCS data indicates 24,000 deaths, with a 95 percent confidence interval from 18,000 to 29,000 deaths.
The third stage consisted of random selection of a main street within the administrative unit from a list of all main streets. A residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street. On the residential street, houses were numbered and a start household was randomly selected. From this start household, the team proceeded to the adjacent residence until 40 households were surveyed.
Burnham counters that such streets were included and that the methods section of the published paper is oversimplified. He also told Science that he does not know exactly how the Iraqi team conducted its survey; the details about neighborhoods surveyed were destroyed “in case they fell into the wrong hands and could increase the risks to residents.”
Michael Spagat, an economist at Royal Holloway, University of London, who specializes in civil conflicts, says the scientific community should call for an in-depth investigation into the researchers’ procedures. “It is almost a crime to let it go unchallenged,” adds [Neil] Johnson.
It sounds as if he's saying he didn't destroy the data because they never existed in the first place. If that's the case, how does Burnham know whether his instructions on methodology were followed at all? How can anyone verify the findings? And this is a peer-reviewed article. Who were these peers? And what did they review?
#194. To: Jethro Tull, innieway, ALL (#188)
Reading problem, JT? innieway said he was NOT putting me on bozo.
JT to innieway - Good for you (putting him on bozo).
#195. To: BeAChooser (#194)
I'll never put you on bozo either. I'm your friend, I'm not really like all the others.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering ****. - Tom Frost
#196. To: christine, ALL (#191)
What is it about FD4UM posters (and owners) that makes facts so frightening? I find it laughable that someone can BOAST about not listening to both sides of a debate ... as if that's a laudable approach to decision making and truth seeking. ROTFLOL!
it's actually enjoyable to read everyone else's posts with BeAChooser bozo'd. ;)
#197. To: BeAChooser (#196)
I find it redeeming that you stomp your feet and scream censorship when the general public laughs at you. Does my heart good.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering ****. - Tom Frost
#198. To: Dakmar, ALL (#197)
There's no censorship on this site except the censorship of covering your own eyes. And that's laughable.
I find it redeeming that you stomp your feet and scream censorship when the general public laughs at you.
#199. To: BeAChooser (#198)
Do you collect Star Wars glasses from Pizza Hut?
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering ****. - Tom Frost
#200. To: BeAChooser (#198)
And we all hold collective responsibility to insure... Where have I heard all this before?
There's no censorship on this site except the censorship of covering your own eyes. And that's laughable.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering ****. - Tom Frost
#201. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#196)
What the fuck do you know about "the truth," BAC?? ..... and truth seeking.
#202. To: BeAChooser, christine, zipporah, All (#196) (Edited)
BeAChooser: What is it about FD4UM posters (and owners) that makes facts so frightening? I find it laughable that someone can BOAST about not listening to both sides of a debate ... as if that's a laudable approach to decision making and truth seeking. ROTFLOL! I swear, BAC, you continually show yourself to be an unparalleled numbskull. How can you be so thick not to see the stupidity of your latest "observation?" Christine is demonstrating open mindedness to the extreme by letting a reichwingbot like yourself post the spam drivel and propaganda that you do on 4um. And just because she exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd ( ie. you), it doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. Grow up and show some gratitude why don't you? And btw when was the last time you were begged for cash by Christine or Zip for the opportunity to post your bot crap here? Huh? Think about that why don't you? At 4um you have free speech with no strings attached, no hidden agendas of the mods. Buy a clue. So are you still posting at freak republic or elpee? How much $ did you invest in both of those political discussion forums over the years?- I'll bet far more $ than some small change. And look where you ended up posting today. Thank your lucky stars for open minded generous people like christine and zipp or you'd be muttering to yourself in your closet instead of having a legitimate internet political forum-platform to disperse your smelly stuff on the net to other 4umers and lurkers alike. Gack - speaking of which - christine, zipporah - do we posters get 4um-issued gas masks to be able to handle all this gassy petoowy free speech from the likes of oozer???
christine: it's actually enjoyable to read everyone else's posts with BeAChooser bozo'd. ;)
#203. To: scrapper2, christine, ALL (#202)
I agree that she's proving there is no censureship at FD4UM and I thank her for that. No. If I were, you'd see a posts from BeAChooser.
Christine is demonstrating open mindedness to the extreme
So are you still posting at freak republic or elpee?
#204. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, All (#193) (Edited)
Look oozer I would rather walk into traffic than "give up" to a tardbotshill like yourself. You boozer have zero credibility - what's your field of expertise? Do you have an MD? Do you have a PhD? Yes, no...uh huh I thought so. You are a net troll and a sad little specimen of a troll at that, I might add. Where do you get the authority to call Dr. Roberts ( PhD) a LIAR (those were your trailer park trash talk exact words)? What credentials empower you to sit in judgement of Dr. Burnham, MD? You think it's soooo evil for Dr. Burnham to support Dr. Roberts because Dr. Roberts is a Democrat( eeeek! keep your distance, BAC, you may catch Democrat cooties!) and because in an interview Dr. Burnham made this outrageous, scandalous statement: "Gil Burnham stated in an interview with The World Today before the study even began that, "we wouldn't go to the effort of doing something like this if we didn't feel that here was a situation that was egregious and, you know, there really needs to be some attention to what we can do to better protect the civilians." I take no joy in telling you this, BAC, but the fact that you take offense to such a caring human statement from Dr. Burnham reflects very poorly on you. You may be a darker individual than merely a sad little specimen of a troll. As for your spam quotes from that joke of a biased website called "Magic Statistics" ...harharharhar...did you think that I would not double check the "credibility" of this information "source?" You under estimate my intelligence and that of other 4um posters. Here's the bio of the website owner http://magicstatistics.com/about/ Let's see...hmmmm...: Perpetually perplexed Christian statistician, Scott Gilbreath, aka StatGuy, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Happily married to the wife of my youth (Prov 5:18). Okay okay - I'll keep my guffaws to a minimum - anyways, I have travelled to Canada on business in the past - to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and you know, "Whitehorse, Yukon" is not where the big fish of any profession live - Yukon is like next door to "the Northwest Territories" ie the Siberia of Canada frankly speaking - it's where teeny tiny minnows are FORCED to live because they can't get a job in the Canadian big cities - so in addition to your source being a rapture nutter he's also - let's put this politely to your tender BAC bot ears - your source is not a Canadian statistician success story. Do you get the picture, BAC? For a giggle I checked out at random what "your" statistician posted under Israel - what a joke - I think his Israel thread of articles and comments makes a definitive statement about his bias and credibility: http://magicstatistics.com/category/asia/middle-east/israel/ "Israeli Jews use Christian donations to help Muslims" "UN official praises Israel" "Israel to begin producing energy from oil shale" Ouch! Are you calling uncle yet, BAC? I'll stop now - I don't like poking fun at single focused israelfirster statisticians forced to live in Canada's Siberia. As for your hero, Kaplan...he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Brooke Gladstone...sounds like he may have some vested personal interests in down playing the numbers of civilian Iraqi Muslims killed for lies. Also, Freddy does not have a stats degree or an MD does he? So the long and short of it is that Freddy Kaplan is basically a layman, an artsy amateur. So when Freddy the music critic for Forward magazine doesn't "connect" or get a response he's expecting from Drs. Burnham, M.D. and Roberts, PhD...it could be that Drs. Burnham and Roberts can't be bothered to answer a biased isrealfirster shill. Anyways, time for you BAC to go back to your closet, plug into your Botenergizer, and try again tomorrow. It's late for your botbunny self. The adults are talking now.
Give it up, scrapper. The John Hopkins studies on Iraq mortality are BOGUS.
#205. To: scrapper2 (#204)
I think the closet is where he hides his pics of Jeff Gannon.
Anyways, time for you BAC to go back to your closet, plug into your Botenergizer, and try again tomorrow. It's late for your botbunny self. The adults are talking now.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#206. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2 (#180) (Edited)
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? 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.
You have NO PROOF they stayed in the Green Zone and didn't interview doctors
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.
#207. To: scrapper2 (#193)
Note how the person who makes his living impugning amateur 911 detectives, brings out an anonymous internet blogger calling himself "Stat Guy" to make his case on this thread.
#208. To: BeAChooser (#194)
Call it what you will, I call it a bozo. He's done communicating with you. More than Bush, Cheney, the GOP and corporate AmeriKa, its party flacks like you who have this nation at war and on the verge of becoming 1/3 of the NAU. It's your support of party before country that allows this invasion of illegal aliens and the accompanying destruction of our culture. Computers are good for folks like you because were you alone, face to face with many here, you'd keep your thoughts to yourself. Don't bother responding back, I won't see it.
I WILL NOT REPLY TO YOU AGAIN. - innieway
#209. To: AGAviator (#207)
That's exactly what I was thinking. It's only an *expert* when BAC says it's an *expert*...
Note how the person who makes his living impugning amateur 911 detectives, brings out an anonymous internet blogger calling himself "Stat Guy" to make his case on this thread.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#210. To: Jethro Tull (#208)
Short rant, but excellent and correct. ANYONE that buys into the whole left/right, conservative/liberal, dem/rep (the '2 party' thing is a fraud - it's all one big happy family of NWO criminals intent on seeing their goal come to fruition) paradigm is kidding themselves and stumbling through life with their eyes closed. Unfortunately, that describes about 95% of Amerika's population.
More than Bush, Cheney, the GOP and corporate AmeriKa, its party flacks like you who have this nation at war and on the verge of becoming 1/3 of the NAU. It's your support of party before country that allows this invasion of illegal aliens and the accompanying destruction of our culture.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
#211. To: innieway (#210)
It's astounding watching the damage that strict adherance to party doctrine can do to a man(?). He's incapable of thinking beyond the cage they erect.
#212. To: scrapper2, all (#204)
Having a little problem satisfactorily addressing the issues I and many others have raised about the John Hopkins studies? At least you got the name right, this time. Mind telling me why Dr Burnham hasn't resolved the factor of 3 discrepancy between peer reviewed estimates of pre-war infant mortality by one of the report authors and Roberts' *peer* reviewed estimate? Mind telling me why Dr Burnham didn't resolve the discrepancy between Lancet blessed estimates of pre-war mortality (by the UN and WHO) and John Hopkins numbers? You see, the pre-war mortality is a rather important number when estimating excess deaths caused by the invasion and alone could explain why the John Hopkins estimate for excess deaths is so outlandishly high. Mind telling me why Dr Burnham told Congress that "at the end of that survey where there was a death in the household, we asked, "By the way, do you have a death certificate?" And in 91 percent of households where this was asked, the households had death certificates." That sure borders on lying when he was supposedly part of the study and should know that description is false. Is it professional for a researcher to make public statements like he made before beginning the research? Don't you think the large contributions he made to a highly partisan democRAT candidate (who just happened to be lead researcher on the first report) might suggest a *little* bias on his part when he led the second effort? Do you think *Dr* Burnham did his job when he allowed such an obviously partisan and defective report to be published? I don't. ROTFLOL! Having a little problem satisfactorily addressing the questions that Dr Burnham simply ignored or was dishonest/misinformed about in his public interviews? Having a little difficulty with the issues and points made at by that writer? Hmmmmmmm? You ignored the most important part of that bio, scrapper. Occupation: STATISTICIAN. He works for the Yukon State Bureau of Statistics in Canada. He got his masters in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington in 1981. That being the case, he might actually have something credible to say about John Hopkins' methodology. But I'm sure you won't bother reading or trying to understand any of what he has to say. Because you already know the answer ... just like Burnham and Roberts knew the answer before they began their research. You can't face the probability that they fabricated their data, can you? And since you seem to want to use nothing but adhominems to defend YOUR two John Hopkins "heros" from specific complaints about their report methodology, bias and dishonesty, perhaps you'd like a few more names to smear: How about smearing the authors of this UN report: http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-%20English.pdf ? Dr Jon Pedersen, who headed that study, is quoted in both the NYTimes and WaPO saying the Lancet numbers are "high, and probably way too high. I would accept something in the vicinity of 100,000 but 600,000 is too much." Here is more on what Dr Pedersen thinks about the John Hopkins work (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2006/11/26/conversation-with-jon-pedersen-on-iraq-mortality-studies/ ) Debarati Guha-Sapir (director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels) was quoted in an interview for http://Nature.com saying that Burnham's team have published "inflated" numbers that "discredit" the process of estimating death counts. (http://www.prwatch.org/node/5339 ) And according to another interviewer, "She has some methodological concerns about the paper, including the use of local people — who might have opposed the occupation — as interviewers. She also points out that the result does not fit with any she has recorded in 15 years of studying conflict zones. Even in Darfur, where armed groups have wiped out whole villages, she says that researchers have not recorded the 500 predominately violent deaths per day that the Johns Hopkins team estimates are occurring in Iraq." Madelyn Hicks, a psychiatrist and public health researcher at King's College London in the U.K., says she "simply cannot believe" the paper's claim that 40 consecutive houses were surveyed in a single day. "There is simply not enough time in the day," she says, "so I have to conclude that something else is going on for at least some of these interviews." Households may have been "prepared by someone, made ready for rapid reporting," she says, which "raises the issue of bias being introduced." (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5798/396 ) Dr. Hicks published a clarification of these concerns titled "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: Were valid and ethical field methods used in this survey?", which concluded that, "In view of the significant questions that remain unanswered about the feasibility of their study’s methods as practiced at the level of field interviews,it is necessary that Burnham and his co-authors provide detailed, data-based evidence that all reported interviews were indeed carried out, and how this was done in a valid manner. In addition, they need to explain and to demonstrate to what degree their published methodology was adhered to or departed from across interviews, and to demonstrate convincingly that interviews were done in accordance with the standards of ethical research. If the authors choose not to provide this further analysis of their data, they should provide their raw data so that these aspects can be examined by others. Even in surveys on the sensitive and potentially risky subject of community violence, adequately anonymized data are expected to be sufficient for subsequent reanalysis and to be available for review. In the case of studies accepted for publication by the Lancet, all studies are expected to be able to provide their raw data." But as some of these sources have noted, they've refused to do so or they can't. Beth Daponte, senior research scholar at Yale University's Institution for Social and Policy Studies, after reading the Lancet article told Fred Kaplan "It attests to the difficulty of doing this sort of survey work during a war. … No one can come up with any credible estimates yet, at least not through the sorts of methods used here." Go ahead, scrapper, smear her: http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1818 "So the pre-war CDR that the two Lancet studies yield seems too low. It may not be wrong, but the authors should provide a credible explanation of why their pre-war CDR is nearly half that of the UN Population Division. If the pre-war mortality rate was too low and/or if the population estimates were too high – because, for example, they ignored outflows of refugees from Iraq – the resulting estimates of the number of Iraqi "excess deaths" would be inflated." Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times, in an interview with PBS, questioned the study based on their earlier research in Iraq, saying, "Well, we think -- 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." Let's hear your smear about Steven E. Moore, who conducted survey research in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority. In an article titled, "655,000 War Dead? A bogus study on Iraq casualties", Moore wrote, "I wouldn't survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points. Neither would anyone else...". Professor Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway's Economics Department, and physicists Professor Neil Johnson and Sean Gourley of Oxford University have published a highly detailed paper (http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Economics/Research/conflict-analysis/iraq-mortality/BiasPaper.html ). They claim (http://www.rhul.ac.uk/messages/press/message.asp?ref_no=367 ) the John Hopkin "study’s methodology is fundamentally flawed and will result in an over-estimation of the death toll in Iraq. The study suffers from "main street bias" by only surveying houses that are located on cross streets next to main roads or on the main road itself. However many Iraqi households do not satisfy this strict criterion and had no chance of being surveyed. Main street bias inflates casualty estimates since conflict events such as car bombs, drive-by shootings, artillery strikes on insurgent positions, and market place explosions gravitate toward the same neighbourhood types that the researchers surveyed." More on their work can be found here: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Economics/Research/conflict-analysis/iraq-mortality/index.html . And then there's an article in Science magazine by John Bohannon which describes some of the above professors criticisms, as well as the response from Gilbert Burnham. Burnham claimed that such streets were included and that the methods section of the published paper is oversimplified. Bohannon says that Burnham told Science that he does not know exactly how the Iraqi team conducted its survey; and that the details about neighborhoods surveyed were destroyed "in case they fell into the wrong hands and could increase the risks to residents." Michael Spagat says the scientific community should call for an in-depth investigation into the researchers' procedures. "It is almost a crime to let it go unchallenged," says Johnson. In a letter to Science, the John Hopkins authors claim that Bohannon misquoted Burnham. Bohannon defended his comments as accurate, citing Burnham saying, in response to questions about why details of selecting "residential streets that that did not cross the main avenues" that "in trying to shorten the paper from its original very large size, this bit got chopped, unfortunately." Apparently, the details which were destroyed refer to the "scraps" of paper on which streets and addresses were written to "randomly" choose households". Such a well conducted survey. ROTFLOL! How about Alastair Mackay (aka AMac) (see http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006577.php and http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006694.php ) Surely you can find something nasty to say about him? And how about some of the members of Iraq Body Count? How about John Sloboda or Joshua Dougherty (AKA joshd)? They've made pretty strong criticisms of the John Hopkins' work. I posted some of them earlier on this thread. Want to smear them too, scrapper? Want to try connecting them to Israel? Or would like to actually address the many specific criticisms that have been raised in this thread. Stick to the facts and logic or smear?
You boozer have zero credibility - what's your field of expertise? Do you have an MD? Do you have a PhD? Yes, no...uh huh I thought so. You are a net troll and a sad little specimen of a troll at that, I might add.
What credentials empower you to sit in judgement of Dr. Burnham, MD?
I take no joy in telling you this, BAC, but the fact that you take offense to such a caring human statement from Dr. Burnham reflects very poorly on you. You may be a darker individual than merely a sad little specimen of a troll.
As for your spam quotes from that joke of a biased website called "Magic Statistics"
Here's the bio of the website owner
Kaplan
#213. To: IndieTX, scrapper2, ALL (#205)
Can't you stick to the facts and logic, IndieTX ... or is unfounded smear the only thing FD4UM'ers as a rule know?
I think the closet is where he hides his pics of Jeff Gannon.
#214. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#206)
Ping to Post # 212. 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?
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?
doctors also issue death certificates in Iraq besides hospitals and morgues,
#215. To: AGAviator, ALL (#207)
He's not anonymous. His name and many details of his life are widely available. Including the fact that he's a STATISTICIAN who works for the government of Canada.
brings out an anonymous internet blogger calling himself "Stat Guy" to make his case on this thread.
#216. To: Jethro Tull, innieway, ALL (#208)
ROTFLOL! That doesn't mean I won't communicate with him should he post some more misinformation.
Call it what you will, I call it a bozo. He's done communicating with you.
#217. To: BeAChooser (#215)
BeAChooser: He's not anonymous. His name and many details of his life are widely available. Including the fact that he's a STATISTICIAN who works for the government of Canada. You are right - "stat guy" makes very clear everything there is to know about him. He's a christonutterisrealfirster who is such valuable respected stats guy that he works for the Cdn gov't in their Siberian hinterland outpost. And this stat guy is challenging the likes of the internationally respected Johns Hopkins public health center and 2 similarly respected professionals Dr. Roberts and Dr. Burnham. Comparing the curriculim vita of Drs Burnham and Roberts to "stats guy" in the Yukon, and it doesn't take genius to recognize who is more credible.
AGAviator: brings out an anonymous internet blogger calling himself "Stat Guy" to make his case on this thread.
#218. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#212)
He [Stats Guy] works for the Yukon State Bureau of Statistics in Canada. He got his masters in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington in 1981. That being the case, he might actually have something credible to say about John Hopkins' methodology. You can't face the probability that they [ Drs. Burnham and Roberts]fabricated their data, can you? Here's the credentials of Dr. Les Roberts: In former work, Roberts was a Director of Health Policy at the International Rescue Committee. In 1994 he worked in Rwanda for the World Health Organization, and performed a similar study to estimate the number of Rwandan refugees. In 2000, he performed a similar study which estimated 1.7 million deaths due to the war in the Congo [1]. This study met with widespread acceptance when published [2], and resulted and was cited in a U.N. Security Council resolution that all foreign armies must leave Congo, a United Nations request for $140 million in aid, and a pledge by the US State Department for an additional $10 million in aid. In 2007, Roberts is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Roberts did post-graduate fellowship work with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. He obtained a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1992, and has been a regular lecturer there, teaching courses in numerous semesters. He obtained a masters degree in public health from Tulane University in 1986, and an undergraduate degree at St. Lawrence University in 1983 Here's the credentials of Dr. Burnham: Academic Degrees MD, Loma Linda University, 1968, MSc, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1977, Ph.D., University of London, 1988 Research and Professional Experience Dr. Gilbert M. Burnham is the co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins. He has extensive experience in emergency preparedness and response, particularly in humanitarian needs assessment, program planning, and evaluation that address the needs of vulnerable populations, and the development and implementation of training programs. He also has extensive experience in the development and evaluation of community- based health program planning and implementation, health information system development, management and analysis, and health system analysis. He has worked with numerous humanitarian and health development programs for multilateral and non-governmental organizations, regional health departments, ministries of health (national and district level), and communities in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. A major current activity is the reconstruction of health services in Afghanistan. Drs. Burnham and Roberts credentials experience int'l reputation TRUMP your stats guy from Yukon with a Masters in Economics from U of Washington hands down. Furthermore, Drs. Burnham and Roberts did not rise to the international stage of epidemiology, which is where they are now, by lying, oozer. As for ad hominems about Kaplan - what the heck is that about? Kaplan writes music related articles for The Forward magazine and he contributes journalistic pieces to Slate. He's an artsy kind of guy - and it's odd that with his academic background and professional interests thusfar that he'd bother to challenge a research study done by MD's/epidemiologists unless Kaplan had a personal interest in having the Muslim casualties down played. Isn't that a reasonable observation to make?
BeAChooser: Or just more CLAIMS by Les Roberts?
#219. To: scrapper2, ALL (#217)
Which has what to do with the specific criticisms he outlines in detail in his blog articles? Any lurkers or visitors to FD4UM by now will observe that you don't want to discuss the details of the criticisms ... not by Mr Gilbreath or any one else. How about Burnham and Roberts versus Dr Jon Pedersen, Debarati Guha-Sapir, Dr Madelyn Hicks, Beth Daponte, Steven Moore, Professor Michael Spagat ... shall I go on? You see, scrapper, it's not just about credentials. It's about professionalism and addressing specific shortcomings in the methodology. It's about having good answers to what many highly qualified people see as red flags. It's about letting your biases get in the way of good research. Sadly, Drs Burnham and Roberts have demonstrated what not to do if good science is your goal.
He's a christonutterisrealfirster
Comparing the curriculim vita of Drs Burnham and Roberts to "stats guy" in the Yukon, and it doesn't take genius to recognize who is more credible.
#220. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#219)
b. How about Burnham and Roberts versus Dr Jon Pedersen, Debarati Guha-Sapir, Dr Madelyn Hicks, Beth Daponte, Steven Moore, Professor Michael Spagat ... shall I go on? You see, scrapper, it's not just about credentials. It's about professionalism and addressing specific shortcomings in the methodology. It's about having good answers to what many highly qualified people see as red flags. It's about letting your biases get in the way of good research. Sadly, Drs Burnham and Roberts have demonstrated what not to do if good science is your goal. a. That stat guy is a religious idealogue has everything to do with his bias. That his credentials both academic and experiential pale by comparison to those of Drs. Burnham and Roberts has everything to do with stat guy's lack of professional credibility. b. The fact that 26 medical field professionals signed a petition in support of Drs. Burnham and Roberts study - its methodology and findings - trumps any internet opinions of the people you cite. Did "Dr Jon Pedersen, Debarati Guha- Sapir, Dr Madelyn Hicks, Beth Daponte, Steven Moore, Professor Michael Spagat" sign a petition and stake their own reputations and those of the institutions they represent to support their opinions?
a. He's a christonutterisrealfirster Which has what to do with the specific criticisms he outlines in detail in his blog articles? Any lurkers or visitors to FD4UM by now will observe that you don't want to discuss the details of the criticisms ... not by Mr Gilbreath or any one else.
#221. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, ALL (#218)
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/reports/lackdiversity.html "Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities, August 28, 2003 ... snip ... we found these representations of registered faculty Democrats to Republicans: ... snip ... Columbia, Yale 14-1. He should be right at home. By all means, scrapper ... ignore the rest of what I posted in #212. Ignore the SPECIFIC and DETAILED criticisms levied by all of those folks. Ignore the fact that Roberts and Burnham continue to wave their hands at those criticisms. Ignore that not one argument put forth to explain the missing death certificates is defensible. It'a all par for the course here at FD4UM. Perhaps because "ignore" is the root word of ...
In 2007, Roberts is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
Drs. Burnham and Roberts credentials experience int'l reputation TRUMP your stats guy from Yukon with a Masters in Economics from U of Washington hands down. Furthermore, Drs. Burnham and Roberts did not rise to the international stage of epidemiology, which is where they are now, by lying, oozer.
#222. To: Neil McIver (#221)
You asked me if there was anything that you could do for me...well, can you write a script to euthanize an entire thread from our screens? Thanks.
#223. To: lodwick (#222)
I had an idea for a "bozo thread" function, where you could elect to bozo an entire thread which would last for a week or so. If after a week it was still active, you could just rebozo it. It would be handy for threads you wish would just go away. Something like that?
#224. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, christine, robin (#221)
b. By all means, scrapper ... ignore the rest of what I posted in #212. Ignore the SPECIFIC and DETAILED criticisms levied by all of those folks. Ignore the fact that Roberts and Burnham continue to wave their hands at those criticisms. Ignore that not one argument put forth to explain the missing death certificates is defensible. It'a all par for the course here at FD4UM. Perhaps because "ignore" is the root word of ... a. What does your laughably biased "study" by a throughly discredited neocon war monger punk named DAVID HOROWITZ, a former communist and Black Panther wannabe, have to do with the validity and credibility of the Johns Hopkins research study on Iraqi civilian deaths? BAC, your back is to the wall now if you resort to quoting anything with DAVID HOROWITZ's name on it. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I love it. Thank you BAC - you've just added 6 feet to the hole you've dug yourself in. DAVID HOROWITZ - oh my - tears are rolling down my face. b. You are coming undone, BAC. Call your therapist. I have not ignored any of the crap you have posted. Other 4um posters, like AGAviator, have not ignored what you have posted on this thread. What we have done is systematically discredited your arguments, your sources, and that's what has you unravelling at the seams. It's not about ignoring you. It's about answering you. It's about burying you.
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/reports/lackdiversity.html "Political Bias in the Administrations and Faculties of 32 Elite Colleges and Universities, August 28, 2003 ... snip ... we found these representations of registered faculty Democrats to Republicans: ... snip ... Columbia, Yale 14-1.
#225. To: lodwick, Neil McIver (#222)
Thanks. I think this thread has come to its natural conclusion. BAC did his swan song in #221.
You asked me if there was anything that you could do for me...well, can you write a script to euthanize an entire thread from our screens?
#226. To: Neil McIver (#223)
rebozo flashed me to Bebe Rebozo - but that's another story from the past. I was thinking along the lines of banned to perdition, gone to hell, never to be seen again in this computer's lifetime type of bozoing...if that is possible, or you could have the time limit thingie, also...I would most often check eternity. Not wanting to stop anyone from participating or mindlessly bantering, I just don't want to waste my time, or disc-space from viewing it.
Something like that?
#227. To: lodwick (#226)
Technically, going the permo thread bozo route is just as easy to create, but needlessly puts a little more overhead on the system since it would always need to filter threads that have long since died off. Since persistent threads do die on their own sooner or later, it would be "cleanest" to just have it block the thread until it likely does. Balancing the desired features with overhead considerations helps keep the response time for all as speedy as possible.
#228. To: Neil McIver (#227)
Thanks for the explanation - just do what is best for all concerned. Stay safe down there. Cheers.
#229. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#221)
BAC, If you can't admit that even "YOUR" number of civilian deaths is testimony to the Bush Cabal War Crimes; you have nothing viable to contribute. You're just another Next-Generation Nazi, doing Tel Aviv's bidding.
#230. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, ALL (#220)
Let's take a closer look at that so-called petition (btw, it's an internet petition, scrapper): **************** The Iraq deaths study was valid and correct October 21, 2006 LAST week, the medical journal The Lancet published the findings of an important study of deaths in Iraq. President George Bush and Prime Minister Howard were quick to dismiss its methods as discredited and its findings as not credible or believable. We beg to differ: the study was undertaken by respected researchers assisted by one of the world's foremost biostatisticians. Its methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously. Professor Gilbert Burnham and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and Al Mustansiriya University School of Medicine in Baghdad measured deaths in Iraq between January 2002 and July 2006. They surveyed 12,801 individuals in 1849 households in 47 representative clusters across the country. Their study is important in providing the only up-to-date, independent, and comprehensive scientific study of mortality after the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The study found that mortality had risen alarmingly since March 2003 and continues to rise. The number of conflict-related excess deaths, above and beyond those that would normally occur, was estimated at 655,000. While precision about such figures is difficult, we can be confident that the excess deaths were above 390,000, and may in fact be as high as 940,000. The vast majority (92 per cent) of the excess deaths were due to direct violence. The cross-sectional household cluster sample survey method used is a standard, robust, well-established method for gathering health data. A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion (92 per cent) of deaths. Conservative assumptions were made about deaths of uncertain cause and about the small areas not sampled. Except in situations of highly reliable, well-maintained, comprehensive vital statistics collection — clearly not the case in Iraq at present — such surveys have been repeatedly demonstrated to be the best method for establishing population rates for key health indicators such as deaths, disability and immunisation coverage. Where passive information collection (such as death counts in morgues or hospitals) are incomplete, as is the case in Iraq today, population-based survey methods can be expected to find higher rates — often considerably higher — but that more accurately reflect the true situation. Conducting such a rigorous study within the constraints of the security situation in Iraq is dangerous and difficult, and deserves commendation. We have not heard any legitimate reason to dismiss its findings. It is noteworthy that the same methodology has been used in recent mortality surveys in Darfur and Democratic Republic of Congo, but there has been no criticism of these surveys. THE SIGNATORIES ... snip ... ***************** First, one can't help but notice that these doctors signed this within one week of the latest report being published. Not very much time for them to ponder the implications and methodology. And certainly a lot of potential defects have been pointed out by many since then. I wonder whether the doctors have ever defended the study from any of those specific criticism ... or if all they did was sign a petition and like you base their opinion solely on the credentials of the researchers. The second thing to notice is that the petition doesn't address a single one of the complaints I've pointed out in this thread. They point out that "A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion (92 per cent) of deaths" but apparently miss the implications of this if death certificates don't turn up with anywhere near the same regularity in the general population. Certainly their claim "We have not heard any legitimate reason to dismiss its findings" is interesting. In one week could they really have had time to carefully read the study, ponder its methodology and potential shortcomings, pay attention to what others had to say about it (a debate that actually took some time to mature), put together a petition and publish it? No. What their petition looks like is a rush to judgement. Now why would they do that? Well let's look at some of the names. According to this, "James Angus was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne in July 2003. Before becoming dean, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. He has extensive research experience in pre-clinical pharmacology in relation to cardiovascular and antinociceptive drugs." Now just what does he know about statistics and surveys ... compared to say Dr Pendersen or Dr Hicks? And has he written ANYTHING about the study, Iraq or mortality since then? No. According to this, his interest is "cancer causes and control, measuring and improving the performance of cancer services". Again, where does it suggest he know anything about proper surveying methodologies for problems like war related dead? He's a skin cancer expert. Has he written anything since about Iraq? No. This gentleman actually does have survey experience similar to Roberts' and Burnham's. He even teaches a course that "Provides a theoretical introduction and is followed by practical experience in critically appraising both published research findings and proposals for new research." So you'd think he'd have asked a few questions like those I and others have been asking before putting pen to virtual paper. Has he written anything since about Iraq? No. Again, outside of signing that petition he hasn't written anything about Iraq or the John Hopkins' studies. According to this, "he is a paediatric infectious disease specialist with extensive experience working with Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory; established research record in the field of Group A Streptococcal disease covering all aspects from molecular biology to epidemiology and public health; involved with the current international effort to develop an agenda of research to support pneumococcal vaccine introduction in the developing world." I wonder why he felt so certain about the statistical methodology and results to sign that petition so quickly? But again, he's written nothing about Iraq before or since so it's hard to know. According to this, "Ben Coghlan is a medical epidemiologist and public health physician trainee. e has worked for a variety of organisations (Australian Red Cross, MSF, IRC and WHO) providing assistance to refugee and displaced populations in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. He is an honorary lecturer with Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and teaches for the International Health stream of the Master of Public health degree, the Master of International Research Bioethics and for the undergraduate medical course. He has also taught epidemiology, communicable disease control and refugee health courses in Uganda, PNG, and Cambodia." And unlike the others "He has conducted cross-sectional surveys in conflict settings assessing mortality, nutritional status and immunisation coverage." And unlike the others, he apparently wrote something about Iraq and the lancet study back in October 2006, about the time he signed the petition. http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=1942 Too bad I can't read it because you have to subscribe to read it and I don't care to do that right now. But I gather its because he says the Burnet Institute (where he works) used the same methodology (clustering) in a study that found 3.9 million Congolese had perished because of that conflict. Ergo any study that uses clustering must be right. I gather Duabe is an expert on tobacco, smoking and cancer. But other than his signature on the petition, I don't see anything written on Iraq or the Lancet reports. Although I hear he is concerned about its use of cigarettes. You know ... I don't really care to spend more time on this. I think readers will get the ghist of what I'm noting about these doctors. I am beginning to think Australian universities are even more liberal than ours. Certainly there appears to be a tendency in that direction amongst the signatories of this petition. I wonder if one could find a correlation between them in terms of who their friends are? ROTFLOL! PS ... I don' t know if you're aware of this but some of these doctors signed a previous petition in September of 2004, condemning the Iraq war. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080677.html Among them was Bruce Armstrong, Rob Moodie and Anthony Zwi. Does that suggest they might have a preconceived bias and just like to sign petitions? They did more than that. They actually got themselves quoted in the mainstream press. And many of them wrote whole articles on the topic. I'd say they put a whole lot more on the line than your fabulous 26, scrapper. ROTFLOL!
The fact that 26 medical field professionals signed a petition in support of Drs. Burnham and Roberts study - its methodology and findings - trumps any internet opinions of the people you cite.
THE SIGNATORIES
Professor James A Angus, dean, faculty of medicine, dentistry and health sciences, University of Melbourne
Professor Bruce Armstrong AM, director of research, Sydney Cancer Centre; professor of public health and medical foundation fellow, University of Sydney
Dr Jim Black, head of epidemiology, Victorian Infectious Diseases Service
Professor Peter Brooks, executive dean, faculty of health sciences, University of Queensland
Professor Jonathan Carapetis, director, Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin
Dr Ben Coghlan, medical epidemiologist, Centre for International Health, Burnet Institute
Professor Mike Daube, professor of health policy, Curtin University
Did "Dr Jon Pedersen, Debarati Guha- Sapir, Dr Madelyn Hicks, Beth Daponte, Steven Moore, Professor Michael Spagat" sign a petition and stake their own reputations and those of the institutions they represent to support their opinions?
#231. To: Neil McIver, lodwick, ALL (#223)
Isn't it amazing the lengths to which certain people would go to hide from facts?
I had an idea for a "bozo thread" function, where you could elect to bozo an entire thread which would last for a week or so. If after a week it was still active, you could just rebozo it. It would be handy for threads you wish would just go away. Something like that?
#232. To: BeAChooser (#231)
Yeah, this thread is chock full of your 10,000 word, 36 image attempts to hide from facts.
Isn't it amazing the lengths to which certain people would go to hide from facts?
I don't want to be a martyr, I want to win! - Me
#233. To: Neil McIver, ALL (#223)
And isn't it interesting that this *Hit Thread* on me turned into something else ... so now certain FD4UMers want it to go away. ROTFLOL!
#234. To: scrapper2, ALL (#225)
Ping to #230, scrapper.
BAC did his swan song in #221.
#235. To: lodwick, ALL (#226)
No one is making you read this thread, lodwick. Have you no will power?
Not wanting to stop anyone from participating or mindlessly bantering, I just don't want to waste my time, or disc-space from viewing it.
#236. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2 (#214) (Edited)
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. Yes, the troll's mantra. "You haven't proven it!" "Liar!" "I haven't lost, I can still post!" ROTFLAMO!
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 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?
#237. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#236)
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" ************ 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? 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...
No, instead you argue that "gross," can't be more than "double," or at most, three times.
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
#238. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2 (#237) (Edited)
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. 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.
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.
It's not a fact until you actually prove that's the way Iraq worked/works. Name some doctors who say this
#239. To: AGAviator, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#238)
The Vermont Guardian By William Rice Having worked on structural steel buildings as a civil engineer in the era when the Twin Towers were designed and constructed, I found some disturbing discrepancies and omissions concerning their collapse on 9/11. I was particularly interested in the two PBS documentaries that explained the prevailing theories as determined by two government agencies, FEMA and NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology). The first (2002) PBS documentary, Why the Towers Fell, discussed how the floor truss connectors failed and caused a “progressive pancake collapse.” The subsequent 2006 repackaged documentary Building on Ground Zero explained that the connectors held, but that the columns failed, which is also unlikely. Without mentioning the word “concrete,” the latter documentary compared the three-second collapse of the concrete Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building with that of the Twin Towers that were of structural steel. The collapse of a concrete-framed building cannot be compared with that of a structural steel-framed building. Since neither documentary addressed many of the pertinent facts, I took the time to review available material, combine it with scientific and historic facts, and submit the following two theories for consideration. The prevailing theory The prevailing theory for the collapse of the 110-story, award-winning Twin Towers is that when jetliners flew into the 95th and 80th floors of the North and South Towers respectively, they severed several of each building’s columns and weakened other columns with the burning of jet fuel/kerosene (and office combustibles). However, unlike concrete buildings, structural steel buildings redistribute the stress when several columns are removed and the undamaged structural framework acts as a truss network to bridge over the missing columns. After the 1993 car bomb explosion destroyed columns in the North Tower, John Skilling, the head structural engineer for the Twin Towers, was asked about an airplane strike. He explained that the Twin Towers were originally designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 (similar in size to the Boeing 767). He went on to say that there would be a horrendous fire from the jet fuel, but “the building structure would still be there.” The 10,000 gallons of jet fuel (half capacity) in each jetliner did cause horrendous fires over several floors, but it would not cause the steel members to melt or even lose sufficient strength to cause a collapse. This is because the short-duration jet fuel fires and office combustible fires cannot create (or transmit to the steel) temperatures hot enough. If a structural steel building could collapse because of fire, it would do so slowly as the various steel members gradually relinquished their structural strength. However, in the 100-year history of structural-steel framed buildings, there is no evidence of any structural steel framed building having collapsed because of fire. Let’s assume the unlikelihood that these fires could weaken all of the columns to the same degree of heat intensity and thus remove their structural strength equally over the entire floor, or floors, in order to cause the top 30- floor building segment (South Tower WTC #2) to drop vertically and evenly onto the supporting 79th floor. The 30 floors from above would then combine with the 79th floor and fall onto the next level down (78th floor) crushing its columns evenly and so on down into the seven levels below the street level. The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases. Even if Newton’s Law is ignored, the prevailing theory would have us believe that each of the Twin Towers inexplicably collapsed upon itself crushing all 287 massive columns on each floor while maintaining a free-fall speed as if the 100,000, or more, tons of supporting structural-steel framework underneath didn’t exist. The politically unthinkable theory Controlled demolition is so politically unthinkable that the media not only demeans the messenger but also ridicules and “debunks” the message rather than provide investigative reporting. Curiously, it took 441 days for the president’s 9/11 Commission to start an “investigation” into a tragedy where more than 2,500 WTC lives were taken. The Commission’s investigation also didn’t include the possibility of controlled-demolition, nor did it include an investigation into the “unusual and unprecedented” manner in which WTC Building #7 collapsed. The media has basically kept the collapse of WTC Building #7 hidden from public view. However, instead of the Twin Towers, let’s consider this building now. Building #7 was a 47-story structural steel World Trade Center Building that also collapsed onto itself at free-fall speed on 9/11. This structural steel building was not hit by a jetliner, and collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed and five hours after the firemen had been ordered to vacate the building and a collapse safety zone had been cordoned off. Both of the landmark buildings on either side received relatively little structural damage and both continue in use today. Contrary to the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers and Building #7, the four other smaller World Trade Center buildings #3, #4, #5, and #6, which were severely damaged and engulfed in flames on 9/11, still remained standing. There were no reports of multiple explosions. The buildings had no pools of molten metal (a byproduct of explosives) at the base of their elevator shafts. They created no huge caustic concrete/cement and asbestos dust clouds (only explosives will pulverize concrete into a fine dust cloud), and they propelled no heavy steel beams horizontally for three hundred feet or more. The collapse of WTC building #7, which housed the offices of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the Department of Defense, among others, was omitted from the government’s 9/11 Commission Report, and its collapse has yet to be investigated. Perhaps it is time for these and other unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 to be thoroughly investigated. Let’s start by contacting our congressional delegation. William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses.
http:// www.vermontguardian.com/commentary/032007/TwinTowers.shtml
March 1, 2007
#240. To: AGAviator, BeAChooser (#238)
Indeed physicians were key participants in the Johns Hopkins' research study. The co-author of the Johns Hopkins' study, Dr. Burnham, is an MD. And the Iraqi team who were responsible for collecting the data were all Iraqi medical doctors - 8 of them in total, as I understand it - 4 male MD's and 4 female MD's. "The two survey teams each consisted of two female and two male interviewers, with the field manager (RL) serving as supervisor. All were medical doctors with previous survey and community medicine experience and were fluent in English and Arabic." http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919 .pdf
I don't provide proof to trolls. Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq. You haven't.
#241. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#238)
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. 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." **************** 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... 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)? 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? 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. Yes. They told him they HATE Americans so he hired them to do his study.
(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.
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,
Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq.
#242. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#239)
First of all John Skilling was NOT the head structural engineer for the WTC towers. Leslie Robertson is the head structural engineer of record. He was the one who moved to New York to do the design. Mr Skilling remained in Seattle. Second, did Mr Rice fail to note to the difference in the speed of the planes assumed in the design and the ones that hit the towers? That difference corresponds to a factor of 7 (or more) difference in the impact energy of the planes. There was NO consideration of fire after the plane impact in the design. Leslie Robertson stated that fire resulting from a plane impact was NOT considered in the design. If Mr Rice thinks otherwise, he is wrong. Melting of steel is not the theory of NIST. Wrong again. First, the fires were NOT of short duration (didn't he read the NIST report like he claimed?) and second how hot does he think the temperatures have to get to weaken steel? The fires in the Windsor Tower in Madrid reached 1400 F and that was without jet fuel to start it. There are plenty of examples of temperatures in fires in ordinary office building reaching those temperatures or even higher. Or does Mr Rice actually think steel strength is unaffected at these temperatures? If so, then I question his credentials. Also, does he think the numerous engineers who did analysis with codes that are generally agreed to be the state of the art in fire engineering are incompetent or wrong when they concluded temperatures in the towers reached nearly 2000 F? Apparently Mr Rice overlooked the likelihood that fireproofing in the towers was extensively damaged by the impacts? And how fast does Mr Rice think unprotected steel strength responds to temperatures of ... say ... 1400 F or higher? This is the silliest statement yet. If that were the case, then why are there fire codes on steel structures? Why is there so much effort (and cost) to protect steel members from fire? The fact is that steel framed building HAVE collapsed due to fire. Mr Rice is simply WRONG. Again, we find Mr Rice claiming a theory that NIST does not promote. What Mr Rice is doing is putting forth a STRAWMAN ... something false to knock down. In fact, if Mr Rice had done as much research of the matter as he claims, he'd know that the theory is that sagging floors broke sections of the outer wall columns and THAT is what led to the collapse. Obviously, he didn't. ROTFLOL! Where has this guy been the last 5 years? How can he claim the towers collapsed in ten seconds if he read the NIST reports as he claimed? If he looked at ANY non-conspiracy website he'd see the towers took 15 seconds or so to collapse. Videos and photos prove this. Even some conspiracy leaning websites admit this. And he should know this IF he's done ANY research besides visiting the more extreme conspiracy websites. This alone is good reason to doubt this individuals competence or opinion. The collapse of WTC 7 was not sudden. Firemen have said they knew it was going to collapse hours before it did because they could see it deforming. This is more conspiracy nonsense. NO ONE who was an eyewitness has said they found POOLS of molten metal at the base of the elevator shafts. If this is so, why hasn't ONE demolition expert in the entire world come forward to say it? Afterall, it should be so obvious when someone like Mr Rice even knows it. Does Mr Rice think they are all part of the conspiracy? ROTFLOL! Any proof any of this is true? Can you perhaps point me to a resume or a university where he got his degree? And who did he work for while working on those structures? Pardon me if I'm now a little skeptical. Let's see what the Vermont Technical College website says. His name isn't listed as faculty or staff: http://catalog.vtc.edu/content.php?catoid=12&navoid=225 . Why is that? In fact, a search of their website doesn't turn up the name William Rice anywhere. Why is that?
After the 1993 car bomb explosion destroyed columns in the North Tower, John Skilling, the head structural engineer for the Twin Towers, was asked about an airplane strike. He explained that the Twin Towers were originally designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 (similar in size to the Boeing 767).
He went on to say that there would be a horrendous fire from the jet fuel, but “the building structure would still be there.”
The 10,000 gallons of jet fuel (half capacity) in each jetliner did cause horrendous fires over several floors, but it would not cause the steel members to melt or even lose sufficient strength to cause a collapse.
This is because the short-duration jet fuel fires and office combustible fires cannot create (or transmit to the steel) temperatures hot enough.
If a structural steel building could collapse because of fire, it would do so slowly as the various steel members gradually relinquished their structural strength.
However, in the 100-year history of structural-steel framed buildings, there is no evidence of any structural steel framed building having collapsed because of fire.
Let’s assume the unlikelihood that these fires could weaken all of the columns to the same degree of heat intensity and thus remove their structural strength equally over the entire floor,
The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed.
Contrary to the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers and Building #7
The buildings had no pools of molten metal (a byproduct of explosives) at the base of their elevator shafts.
only explosives will pulverize concrete into a fine dust cloud
William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses.
#243. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#241)
BeAChooser: Yes. They told him they HATE Americans so he hired them to do his study. 1. What research studies have your chorus of net critics published in the Lancet regarding Iraqi deaths since the US invasion? I'd like to read those studies - please provide links. Thank you. 2. As for your LA journalist,Borzou Daragahi, what medical specialty does he have and what epidemiology research studies has he published or co-authored? Please provide the research study links as well as his academic credentials and training in population research. Thank you. 3. It would appear that Dr.( is it Dr?)Borzou Daragahi - gets around. The Washington Times refers to Borzou Daragahi as "Our Man in Baghdad" - interesting, isn't that comment? - NPR, Washington Times, LA Times - he's built lotsa bridges to people in high places, it would appear. 4. Regarding your comment about the medical doctors whom Drs. Roberts and Burnham hired to do the data collection - you are a liar, obviously. And furthermore, BAC, America liberated Iraq so why would any of them hate us? No doubt, it's all Al Quaeda's doing - those 650,000 dead Iraqis.
Aviator: Les Roberts knows some doctors and has been to Iraq.
#244. To: Niel (#243)
I know that you're staying up nights to make a Bozo Thread Killer feature for our 4um - aren't you? Some threads are too sick to die - they need to be killed. Thank you.
#245. To: scrapper2, ALL (#240)
Did any of them mention HATING Americans? That's what Les Roberts said they felt about us. Do we know the names of any of them and did they tell him that they'd written death certificates for a 100 people and not reported any of those deaths? You don't happen to know the names of the physicians on the death certificates they CLAIMED they were shown, do you?
And the Iraqi team who were responsible for collecting the data were all Iraqi medical doctors - 8 of them in total, as I understand it - 4 male MD's and 4 female MD's.
#246. To: scrapper2, ALL (#243)
This is a quote by Les Roberts in UK's Socialist Worker newspaper: "Most of them [workers from non-governmental organizations, my colleagues and my driver] hate the Americans, most want the coalition troops gone."
4. Regarding your comment about the medical doctors whom Drs. Roberts and Burnham hired to do the data collection - you are a liar, obviously.
#247. To: lodwick, ALL (#244)
The truth hurts, doesn't it.
Some threads are too sick to die - they need to be killed.
#248. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#245)
Do we know the names of any of them and did they tell him that they'd written death certificates for a 100 people and not reported any of those deaths? You don't happen to know the names of the physicians on the death certificates they CLAIMED they were shown, do you? a. Put that in context BAC. Quote from the study where the Iraqi medical doctors said that exact phrase. b. Who is we - you and me? No. Why should we? Do you or I know the names of the physicians in the Congo or Darfur who participated in those population studies? c. Why would I know the names of the physicians who signed the death certificates? Do you know the names of the names of the physicians who signed the certificates that the Iraq Minestry of Health claims it has or what the LA claims it has seen?
Did any of them mention HATING Americans? That's what Les Roberts said they felt about us.
#249. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#246) (Edited)
"Most of them [workers from non-governmental organizations, my colleagues and my driver] hate the Americans, most want the coalition troops gone." How do we know quotation in the "Socialist Worker" paper is accurate? I don't see anything that specifically names the 8 medical doctors who particpated in the data collection. Because you are not a medical professional - you don't have a clue about the higher values and truths that all MD's pledge themselves to uphold and abide by ie. a commitment to integrity, mercy, justice, sensitivity and trust. Because you are a troll, you don't get it. That's why you'd put Iraqi medical doctors on the same level as an Iraqi vendor or cab driver or police officer. Btw, was that inherent animosity of Iraqis to Americans documented in the research study? If it wasn't then it did not influence the study's methodology - scientific studies document known biases or negatives that might have an influence on outcomes. Btw, you must explain to me why any hatred for Americans should exist in Iraq, considering that we liberated Iraqis - we've given them a future as a democracy with freedom everywhere - and if as you say the numbers of deaths are insignificent, why would Iraqis hate us? I don't get it - explain it to me.
This is a quote by Les Roberts in UK's Socialist Worker newspaper:
#250. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2 (#241) (Edited)
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. 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? The LA Times specifically said the Health Ministry's count did not include the most violent governates. So your source "guesses" that ~only~ 300,000 have died unnecessarily, and you consider this a victory... 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. 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. 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. Provide some names of people familiar with the Iraq health care system who say that Iraqi doctors don't issue death certificates, blowhard. 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. 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 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? 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. 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.
(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
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.
First, the most violent governorates are relatively oversampled.
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."
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...
Again, provide the names of some Iraqi doctors who say they issued dozens or even hundreds of death certificates and then never notified authorities.
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.
You see, they even went to cemeteries, AGAviator. So apparently they didn't find evidence that another half a million Iraqis have been buried.
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.
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.
#251. To: scrapper2 (#249)
LOL.
Btw, you must explain to me why any hatred for Americans should exist in Iraq, considering that we liberated Iraqis - we've given them a future as a democracy with freedom everywhere - and if as you say the numbers of deaths are insignificent, why would Iraqis hate us? I don't get it - exlain it to me.
#252. To: scrapper2 (#250)
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.
#253. To: AGAviator, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#251)
BAC has to be laughing his head off, at being able to so easily side-track this thread.
#254. To: SKYDRIFTER, scrapper2 (#253)
I think there has been a pretty good job done rebutting the troll's false statements. Les Roberts, who is a real person, may even use some of the information discussed herein should he get interviewed by the media in the future. The Bozo has been a useful foil in that respect....
#255. To: scrapper2 (#250)
Another reason you can't expect anything accurate out of the Baghdad central government, such as tracking all death certificates and other records, was the American decision to "de Baathize" all parts of the Iraqi government at all levels. This produced an Iraqi government that was barely functioning, because all the people who were running things were suddenly removed.
#256. To: AGAviator, christine, lodwick, BeAChooser (#252)
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. That's a very powerful ( and terribly tragic) picture in many ways. Aviator, I think you've rung the bell on BAC's smoke, smudge, and dust efforts. I think I'm going to leave BAC to play in his sandbox with his war toys by himself. With your quote above, Aviator, you put a resounding end stop to this thread.
Here's what happens in Iraq when people try to count graves
#257. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, ALL (#248)
From an interview with a socialist organization, http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6271, "Talking to workers from non-governmental organisations, my colleagues and my driver, I would ask if things were better. They said some things were better but they were really worried about security. Most of them hate the Americans, most want the coalition troops gone." But Roberts and his colleagues should know that. Shouldn't they? Why don't you ask them if they do.
Put that in context BAC. Quote from the study where the Iraqi medical doctors said that exact phrase.
Why would I know the names of the physicians who signed the death certificates?
#258. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, ALL (#249)
Has Roberts said or written anything, anywhere to contradict anything he is quoted saying in that rather long interview? No??? Who do you think Roberts meant by "colleagues"? Surely you aren't suggesting that it is Roberts "colleagues" at John Hopkins who "hate" Americans? ROTFLOL! You don't think doctors can be liberals with a cause? ROTFLOL! I imagine a police officer would have obeyed the rules and reported half a million deaths if they'd occurred. Why I imagine even a lowly Iraqi vender or cab driver would have had enough sense to do that. You really believe this? My, you are gullible. I suppose you also don't think Helen Thomas' liberalism (or that of the majority of those in the media) affects their work? ROTFLOL! Then you just proved that these John Hopkins' studies weren't "scientific". I've said no such thing. Nor have I implied it. What I've said is that John Hopkins' claims are clearly bogus and that you won't find the truth or build a better world on a foundation of misinformation (or lies).
This is a quote by Les Roberts in UK's Socialist Worker newspaper:
"Most of them [workers from non-governmental organizations, my colleagues and my driver] hate the Americans, most want the coalition troops gone."
How do we know quotation in the "Socialist Worker" paper is accurate?
I don't see anything that specifically names the 8 medical doctors who particpated in the data collection.
Because you are not a medical professional - you don't have a clue about the higher values and truths that all MD's pledge themselves to uphold and abide by ie. a commitment to integrity, mercy, justice, sensitivity and trust.
That's why you'd put Iraqi medical doctors on the same level as an Iraqi vendor or cab driver or police officer.
Btw, was that inherent animosity of Iraqis to Americans documented in the research study? If it wasn't then it did not influence the study's methodology
scientific studies document known biases or negatives that might have an influence on outcomes.
and if as you say the numbers of deaths are insignificent
#259. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#250)
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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"? You will never find the truth or build a better world if you insist on promoting a lie or misinformation. 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. Prove it. You haven't offered ANYTHING to prove this other than a claim by Les Roberts. 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? That's not what IraqBodyCount says and they've studied the reporting of deaths in the news media ratherly extensively. Dahr Jamail. Now there's a reliable source. ROTFLOL! Is that or is that not your claim? For some reason I don't that's the reason, AGAviator. 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?
There are not 500,000 missing death certificates
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.
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.
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.
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 fact is, Iraqi doctors also can give out 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.
And as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, most deaths don't make it into the news media,
Dahr Jamail's Mideast Dispatches
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."
Because I don't prove things to trolls
He didn't hire them because they "hated Americans."
#260. To: scrapper2, AGAviator, christine, lodwick, ALL (#256)
I see that claim comes from this nice unbiased source: http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=5525 But let's dig a little deeper ... something you obviously didn't do. ************ http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended/3.4.php "3.4.3. "Iraqi Kaffi/People's Kifah": no such study as described The mis-spelled "Iraqi Kaffi" study in the HPN table refers to a report of 37,000 Iraqi civilian deaths from the "People's Kifah", a political group in Iraq, and is correctly cited as such in MIT 05. The table describes the study as covering the period from March to October 2003. This is indeed how it was reported on July 31, 2004 by the English language edition of Aljazeera: An Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003. The People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony, movement said in a statement that it carried out a detailed survey of Iraqi civilian fatalities during September and October 2003. The report then lists in detail the deaths recorded in various towns, eg., 6103 in Baghdad, 2009 in Mosul, and so on. However, on August 21, 2003 the very same detailed town-by-town figures, as well as a total of 37,000 civilians killed, originating from the same political party and spokesperson, were published on the website of Jude Wanniski, a retired Wall Street Journal reporter. Wanniski reproduced in full an emailed communiqué from the party spokesperson which stated: If we give preference to the unedited words of the spokesperson, then this survey covered the period from 20 March to mid-June 2003, not to October 2003. In any case, it is impossible for data published in August 2003 to have been collected in September and October 2003. It is clear that neither Roberts nor the champions of his analysis are aware of the provenance of this report, which — if correctly cited — provides a rate of 422 (civilians-only) killed per day, not 152 as given in the HPN table. It is surprising that this survey should have been given such cursory treatment before being added to the table, particularly considering that it provides the table's highest entry. Even if this date discrepancy is overlooked, full details of the survey's methodology (including reliability of data-gathering methods, checks for double and triple-counting etc.) have never been described. It is therefore not possible to give this survey the same weight as studies whose methodologies are clear and auditable. ************** You folks have been fooled AGAIN. ROTFLOL!
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.
The above figures were the actual civilian deaths killed violently since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in March this year and until the middle of June (including those killed after the fall of Saddam's regime and who in a way of another caught between gunfire of the US troops and the Iraqi resistance).
#261. To: scrapper2 (#256)
BeASpammer is trying to be the last one standing on the thread...
#262. To: AGAviator, ALL (#261)
"it is impossible for data published in August 2003 to have been collected in September and October 2003." ROTFLOL!
#263. To: scrapper2 (#256)
Link The World, and particularly the peace-loving World is far from knowing the truth of the real number of civilian casualties during the American led aggression on Iraq. Although we know that there were groups of organizations (see http://www.iraqbodycount.net) who tried their utmost best to come up with an accurate figure of the total civilian death, but reaching the sites where these deaths occurred was one major obstacle in their effort. Besides, the language barrier and hesitation of the people in Iraq to talk to foreigners were also part of the lack of accurate information regarding this issue. As the general coordinator of the Iraqi Freedom Party, I made a request to our Party Headquarters in Iraq to fully investigate this matter and to come up with accurate and up to date information of the total civilians killed during the invasion of Iraq. After more than five weeks of intensive and thorough investigations carried out by hundreds of our party’s cadre, which included all villages, towns, cities and some of the desert areas etc. affected by the aggression (with exception of the Kurdish area), and also by interviewing hundreds of undertakers, hospitals officials and ordinary people in these places, the figure of civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion came to 37,137. This figure does not include militia, para-military or Saddam’s Fiday’een. The breakdown of the total number of civilians killed during the invasion of Iraq is as follows (Please note that the names underneath represent that of 14 Governorates, excluding Iraqi Kurdistan): Due to the absence in Iraq (with the exception of the Kurdish area) of functional communication systems with the outside World, our party headquarter in Baghdad tried to send me a fully comprehensive and detailed report by fax from Al-Sulaymaniyah (a Kurdish area). However, by crossing to the Kurdish area, the Kurdish “Peshmarga” searched the person carrying that report which was found with him and confiscated. According, he was handed over to the American troops where he was arrested and no one knows yet of his whereabouts. This incident clearly indicates that the US Army does not want the truth of the civilian casualties made public. They're some "success story" all right.
To: Mr. Jude Wanniski From: Dr. Mohammed Al-Obaidi General coordinator of the Iraqi Freedom Party
Note how BeASpammer's Kurdish darlings both refuse to give casualty figures to independent media, and also arrest and turn over people trying to get these numbers to the US Army, who "disappears" them. Baghdad 6103
The above figures were the actual civilian deaths killed violently since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in March this year and until the middle of June (including those killed after the fall of Saddam’s regime and who in a way of another caught between gunfire of the US troops and the Iraqi resistance).
Mosul 2009
Basrah 6734
Nasiriyah 3581
Diwaniyah 1567
Kut 2494
Hillah 3552
Karbala (including Najaf) 2263
Samawah 659
Amarah 2741
Ramadi 2172
Kerkuk 861
Diyalah 604
Tikrit 1797
#264. To: BeASpammer (#259) (Edited)
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
Flock you, troll.
(2) You have no shame.
#265. To: (#262) (Edited)
It is impossible for something to begin in March, take 5 weeks, and end in August, or September, or October. ROTFLOL! And flock you, troll.
#266. To: AGAviator (#263) (Edited)
The Kurds sold themselves out to the neozios. With their lies about Saddam having a working relationship with AQ, the Kurds have blood on their hands - they are war criminals like the neozios - the Kurds were a significant piece of Dubya's faux rationale for the Iraq invasion. The Kurds will eventually be betrayed by the neozios - like Uncle Saddam himself was - there can only be one Precious to which DC is loyal above all else. The Kurds should have stayed with their loyalty to Iran - Israelis look down on the Kurds because they are not Jews - the Kurds are most ethnically similar to the Iranians. That was a more natural match for alliances. It's too late now - the Kurds are screwed and rightfully so. They have Iraqis' blood on their hands. When the Hewey evac helicopters are poised on the roof tops of the Green Zone, there will be no seats available for the Kurds. The neozios would never want to burn bridges with the Turks when all is said and done.
Note how BeASpammer's Kurdish darlings both refuse to give casualty figures to independent media, and also arrest and turn over people trying to get these numbers to the US Army, who "disappears" them. They're some "success story" all right.
#267. To: scrapper2 (#266)
And then we'll have some of the more fortunate ones trying to eke out a living in this country as refugees.
The Kurds will eventually be betrayed by the neozios - like Uncle Saddam himself was - there can only be one Precious to which DC is loyal above all else.
#268. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#263)
ROTFLOL! Did you notice the date on what you just posted, AGAviator? August 21, 2003, just as IraqBodyCount indicated in the URL I posted and linked in post #260. Now do you see the problem with that date? It's BEFORE the date your first source and al-Jazerra claimed the study was conducted. Shall I repeat what you first posted? The People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony, movement said in a statement that it carried out a detailed survey of Iraqi civilian fatalities during September and October 2003. Now tell us, how can one report the results of a study in August that you don't carry out till September and October? Look at a calendar. ROTFLOL! By the way, the number of dead in each place you listed is IDENTICAL in the Al Jazeera source from which all this came. And it says "Al-Ubaidi, a UK-based physiology professor, provided a detailed breakdown of the 37,000 civilian deaths for each governorate (excluding the Kurdish areas) relating to the period between March and October 2003". Again, how can those numbers relate to a period October 2003 when they were already published in August 2003? You just don't know when to quit, do you. By the way, I don't really have a big problem with that number anyway? It's only about 50-75 percent higher than IraqBodyCounts estimate over the same period. The bottom line is that it has to have been included in John Hopkins 100,000 estimate so it doesn't begin to explain the missing 500,000 death certificates. Oh, by the way, be sure to tell folks a little about Jude Wanniski. For one, he denies Saddam committed genocide against the Kurds. What irony ... To: Mr. Jude Wanniski From: Dr. Mohammed Al-Obaidi General coordinator of the Iraqi Freedom Party
#269. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#268)
How many Iraqi civilians would you "authorize" to be killed, BAC - got a number, asshole? They stand as American War Crimes, whether you like reality, or not; whatever the number.
#270. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#264)
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 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 ... 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. 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.
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.
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."
#271. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#270)
Hey, BAC, answer the question, Fuck-Head! How many Iraqi civilians would you "authorize" to be killed, BAC - got a number, asshole? They stand as American War Crimes, whether you like reality, or not; whatever the number.
#272. To: scrapper2, ALL (#266)
You appear to be suggesting that if we abandon Iraq (as you hope), there will be a bloodbath. How many do you expect will die in that bloodbath? Say just among the Kurds. Just curious whether your estimates are as good as say ... John Kerry's estimates were about what would happen in Vietnam after we left.
When the Hewey evac helicopters are poised on the roof tops of the Green Zone, there will be no seats available for the Kurds.
#273. To: beachooser (#272)
How many Iraqi civilians would you "authorize" to be killed, BAC - got a number, asshole? They stand as American War Crimes, whether you like reality, or not; whatever the number. Hey, BAC, answer the question, Fuck-Head!
#274. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, ALL (#263)
Let's take a look at him ... http://www.counterpunch.org/saud07122005.html "First of all the resistance, which represents the will of the majority of Iraqis is certain that the election was a violation of international law." If you read that you'll see he's a real friend of the "resistance" (you know, the folks using bombs to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis). He spouts all their slogans. Not exactly an unbiased party if you ask me. ROTFLOL! And remember when he delighted in telling Wanniski that they were going to drop the genocide charge against Saddam? http://www.orbstandard.com/News/wanniskisaddamlawyers.html Too bad that turned out false... But no wonder he and Wanniski were so friendly. Al-Obaidi denies the Kurds were murdered by Saddam, too: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=AL-20041220&articleId=330 ROTFLOL!
Mohammed Al-Obaidi
#275. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator, christine, SKYDRIFTER (#272) (Edited)
BeAChooser: You appear to be suggesting that if we abandon Iraq (as you hope), there will be a bloodbath. How many do you expect will die in that bloodbath? Say just among the Kurds. Just curious whether your estimates are as good as say ... John Kerry's estimates were about what would happen in Vietnam after we left. I believe that we will abandon Iraq. We are foreign occupiers. We should not be there. That culture is hundreds of years older than America - they don't need "tips" from us on how to run a country or how to be businesslike with the sale of their natural resources. We should not have invaded another sovereign nation that was no threat to us. The Iraqi nationals - ie. the insurgents - or as you and other reichwingers like to call them, the enemy - will grow in number. They want us out as well they should. They want their nation back. If we don't go gracefully, they'll drive us out with a million razor cuts. I want our nation to normalize diplomatic relations with Iraq eventually. I believe a Shiite dominated Iraq along with its sister, a Shiite dominated Iran, could be valuable allies to America in a sea of hostile Sunni Muslims, who are the vast majority of Muslims in the ME as well as the world. That cannot will not happen while we occupy and cause violence ourselves or act as magnets to violence caused by others. As for the Kurds, they would be wise to ally themselves again with Iran as they did during the Iran-Iraq War. They are more closely related ethnically to the Iranians anyways. I can't say I adore the Kurds - they helped build the lie that Uncle Saddam was a consort with AQ, which he wasn't - and please spare me the BAC spam reply with articles from the Weekly Standard etc - but I don't wish them harm - I just think they are disposable allies - the only ally DC would not purposely betray is Precious aka Israel - so the Kurds one way or the other are 2nd class allies to DC - and if the going gets rough which it will, DC would throw them under the bus, no problem. That's why if I were a Kurdish leader, I'd be re-building those ties with Shiite Iran pronto. As for Israel, it can certainly defend itself - we've paid Israelis a handsome sum over the years to buy and design every high tech weapon known to modern mankind. Israel looks out for itself. That's what we must do as well so we should diversify our allies in the ME - I think it should be Shiites - I think we should stop interfering and being bullyboy in the ME. We should buy oil at the market price and be done with all the other game playing. We should not be sending our troops to fight wars for the benefit of Israel, the oil industry, or the defense industry. If the afore-mentioned want to "control" affairs in the ME, they can pay for mercenaries, and not have the US spend American blood and treasure to give them a positive outcome for their self-serving goals. Btw, fyi I voted for GWB in 2000 because he promised he would never abuse our troops for nation building projects in foreign lands. I thought he was a conservative - what a joke on me. I believe we should give isolationaism a chance and devote our attention to the problems that exist stateside. I don't mind paying $5 per gallon for gas if it means our troops aren't sent to foreign lands to act like uncivilized Huns.
scrapper: When the Hewey evac helicopters are poised on the roof tops of the Green Zone, there will be no seats available for the Kurds.
#276. To: scrapper2, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#275)
The crisis now is in admitting that the USA destroyed a country and replaced a built up nation with flattened towns and a bloody civil war. Somehow it seems more honorable to kill more for less. 3,000 plus GIs have already died for halliburton profits; will another six thousand somehow rescue those lives? It's time to bite the proverbial bullet & cut our losses. This isn't about protecting an investment, it's a matter of minimizing the obvious disaster.
#277. To: scrapper2, ALL (#275)
So how many Iraqis (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, whatever) do you expect will die in the bloodbath that follows our departure?
#278. To: BeAChooser (#277)
I have no idea. Probably much less than if we parked our butts there for the next 10 years. Do you care either way? It doesn't strike me that you care how many Muslims or Americans die or are injured as long as it not Israelis. We should not have invaded Iraq. It follows that we should not continue to be there.
So how many Iraqis (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, whatever) do you expect will die in the bloodbath that follows our departure?
#279. To: scrapper2 (#278)
I have no idea. Probably much less than if we parked our butts there for the next 10 years. Do you care either way? It doesn't strike me that you care how many Muslims or Americans die or are injured as long as it not Israelis. We should not have invaded Iraq. It follows that we should not continue to be there. You for got to end your post with "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOL! so everyone knows how self confident you are!
So how many Iraqis (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, whatever) do you expect will die in the bloodbath that follows our departure?
#280. To: BeABozo, scrapper2 (#268) (Edited)
Hey airhead. I don't give two $hits about what Iraq Body Count posted in their URL, because Iraq Body Count didn't make the original statement and are repeating second- hand information. You can't impeach the source, so instead you go to Iraq Body Count said that Al Jazeera said that Jude Wanniski said that The People's Kiffa said. Typical of your intellectual dishonesty. So flock you, troll. You mean the date that's being given by somebody that is not a party to the original statement? You have any problem quoting from sources directly, Bozo bait, instead of from third-hand comments about the sources? Irony for you, numbnuts. By your bizarre mental process, if you don't have half a million death certificates of Kurds killed by Saddam, he couldn't have possibly committed genocide against them! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! Where are the missing death certificates? Half a million of them! ROTFLOL! Up yours, twerp.
ROTFLOL! Did you notice the date on what you just posted, AGAviator? August 21, 2003,just as IraqBodyCount indicated in the URL I posted and linked in post #260.
Now do you see the problem with that date? It's BEFORE the date your first source and al-Jazerra claimed the study was conducted.
Oh, by the way, be sure to tell folks a little about Jude Wanniski.
For one, he denies Saddam committed genocide against the Kurds. What irony ...
#281. To: BeABozo, scrapper2, skydrifter (#270) (Edited)
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 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. (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" 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 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
"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 50,000 death certificates you keep blathering about consist of data from only two sources(1) The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while
(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.(1) Counting only one morgue in an entire country,
You pathetic turd.
(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.
#282. To: scrapper2 (#202)
Bears repeating. You do have a way with words. I may want to borrow it for my sig line.
And just because she exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd ( ie. you), it doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close.
#283. To: AGAviator, BeAFluffer, christine, Zipporah, Rowdee, Robin, Minerva, Diana, kiki (#280)
ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! ROTLOL! Where are the missing death certificates? Half a million of them! ROTFLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! And, BeAFluffer, now that AGAviator has nailed your ass to the outhouse door I think I'll just walk away with my nose in the air, and ROTFLMAO! By your bizarre mental process, if you don't have half a million death certificates of Kurds killed by Saddam, he couldn't have possibly committed genocide against them!
#284. To: AGAviator (#281)
excellent post
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#285. To: HOUNDDAWG (#283)
Hi Dawgie, where's Askel?
#286. To: AGAviator (#285)
She doesn't post here, and last I saw her she was still over at ewe gno ware.
#287. To: HOUNDDAWG (#283)
I've decided BAC is into S&M......cause he sure likes having his ass whupped hither and yon! LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
#288. To: rowdee (#287)
ROTFLMAO!
#289. To: HOUNDDAWG, BeAChooser (#283)
BAC, that's a great picture in 283; it's better than the other one because you're smiling in 283. LOL Don't worry about these naysayers BAC. I'm still your fan. I read every word you write. and I believe everything you say too. You are a genius.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
#290. To: AGAviator, ALL (#281)
You sure? Because I quoted one of the authors of the LATimes story, Borzou Daragahi saying "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." MorgueS. With an S.
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
#291. To: AGAviator, ALL (#282)
Here's what bears repeating: *********** http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php Iraq Body Count Press Release 16 October 2006 Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty Summary A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that: 1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms; 2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment; 3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq; 4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued; 5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja. And this: If these assertions are true, they further imply: * incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began; * bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis; * the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas; * an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year. In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy. ************** Good reasons why the John Hopkins studies are BOGUS.
#292. To: AGAviator, scrapper2, HOUNDDAWG, rowdee, Red Jones (#281)
perfect.
You pathetic turd.
#293. To: christine, AGAviator, ALL (#292)
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?
You pathetic turd.
perfect.
#294. To: BeAChooser (#293)
maybe if you'd give us some more pictures of yourself besides the 2 you already gave us, then we could put them up and attract some new people.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
#295. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#293)
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! 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.
#296. To: SKYDRIFTER, All (#295)
Take a hint, asshole Hear Hear! All together now brothers and sisters! "Buh Bye BeAFluffer!"
Go away. No other person has ever incited such appropriate vitriol with their presence, as you have.
#297. To: HOUNDDAWG, SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#296)
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.
Go away. No other person has ever incited such appropriate vitriol with their presence, as you have.
Take a hint, asshole
Hear Hear!
#298. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#297)
No one is "begging' - just fucking leave, asshole! Christine may be fair to an extreme, but that doesn't make you anything but a verbose and slimy coward/traitor. You're every bit the coward Diana describes, no one knows where you live, or what you look like. No doubt that's smart of you, as that's what cowards and queers do. Just fucking leave, BAC. Goldi didn't ban you; that was all an illusion, designed to fabricate the 'character,' which you lack. You still have a home at ElPee. "Get back, Beocho! And now they've begun begging me to leave.
Get back to where you belong."
#299. To: BeAChooser, christine (#297)
And, I'm sorry for that. In fact, nothing would please me more than for you to suddenly decide that caring about our feelings is more important than being right. If you choose to be a skillful but polite and respectful debater, then you'd be a stimulating and welcome addition to the forum. And, this would benefit you no matter where you go because, like it or not it's a quirk of human nature that if you put someone you're debating on the defensive you lose by default, and your present style is winning no converts and even fewer friends. If you're having fun and don't care about us then by all means continue. But, it's my nature to try and fix things, and I had to reach out at least once before striking a line through your name forever. How about it? Is there some really good reason why we can't be friends? If not then, if you start treating the people with whom you've had some rancorous and unpleasant exchanges with respect then we can start all over and perhaps benefit each other. I don't really believe that you feel superior to anyone, and in fact it will be an unnecessary defensive tactic if you are willing to give my suggestion a try. Are you?
And now they've begun begging me to leave.
#300. To: BeAChooser (#297)
But for the most part they haven't done that. Repetition does not make truth, fuck-face. Simply because you CHOOSE to SPAM the board with material that conflicts with other material posted here (and usually reality, one might add), proves nothing other than your obsessiveness for and/or devotion to USFedGov. Tell a lie often enough...where have I heard that before?
Now FD4UMers could challenge those facts and logic with credible sourced articles and logic of their own.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering Joan. - Tom Frost
#301. To: Dakmar (#300)
well said, dak. everyone else but the delusional government toady can see his ass has been kicked a hundred ways to sunday on this forum. it's also apparent to most that he's a collossal waste of time.
#302. To: Christine, Critter, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#301)
I fear that one of BAC's disinformation missions is to establish the 4-um as a politically watered-down and "controversial" asset, thereby insulating its factual value as a serious journalistic source, relative to topics such as 9-11 and the various "Bush" War Crimes. Ordinarily, I wouldn't move for a banning, but I'd make an exception in cases such as BAC's. He is reasonably talented, at what he does. My two-cent's worth, on the topic. it's also apparent to most that he's a collossal waste of time.
.
#303. To: christine (#301)
It's good training for spotting propaganda elsewhere. While I'm against banning, I think it might be a hoot to make his posting here contingent upon answering questions. It would take a hell of a lot of moderating though, and I can understand why no one would wish to subject themselves to that.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering Joan. - Tom Frost
#304. To: SKYDRIFTER (#302)
Truth is truth and cannot be shouted down, although it can be drowned out at times. I actually think BAC is funny, in an Orwellian sort of way. You have to admit, it feels good to trounce his think-tank lies, spin, and talking points. He serves a purpose here, I think. He is our perennial omega bitch.
If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering Joan. - Tom Frost
#305. To: Dakmar, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#304)
I'd like to see at least a 30-day suspension for BAC; with the understanding that he'll come back in the "spam-free" mode; or else. If BAC could stay "spam- free" for Goldi, he can do so for the 4-um. Why 30 days? Because I think whatever is going to happen in Iran will take place in that window - and we don't need the likes of BAC to muddle the issues.
#306. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#297)
Say, BAC, there's a "person" with your posting and response style over at ElPee - "Sweetjustusnow;" is that really you? A simple yes/no is sufficient. We know you never lie, you lying piece of shit, you.
#307. To: HOUNDDAWG, ALL (#299)
You mean like these folks? Minerva - starts a thread titled "BeAChooser Bozo Count at 40 Plus and Counting - A Possible Site Record" orangedog - Ignore him to death and he'll fade away like a bad fart. Red Jones - BAC is the guy on the left. Diana - He's a bad egg. Diana - There is no intellect present in an exceedingly dishonest poster with a very questionable agenda. SKYDRIFTER - I've long accused BAC of being queer rowdee - Di, dear lady, just tell the bastard to go fuck himself and get it over with! rowdee - Being the nice sweet lady you are makes this turd-faced jerkoff bolder. IndieTX - Low intellect, psychotic, no talent..paranoid..delusions of grandeur [save the world from kooks] and perhaps, "sexually disoriented" = Chimp = Insane. Nostalgia - The fucker's maniacal with that ROTFLOL! Elliot Jackalope - Just make him a dustmop suit, and let him post in a room that needs the floors cleaned..... SKYDRIFTER - you Mossadite piece of shit, scrapper2 - Eat it. christine - well done, honway. see this is the kind of information which is being exposed because of the sad little specimen of a troll. innieway - "I'M DONE WITH YOUR SATANIST ASS Jethro Tull - Dump his Zionist, blood dancing ass. scrapper2 - I swear, BAC, you continually show yourself to be an unparalleled numbskull. scrapper2 - Look oozer I would rather walk into traffic than "give up" to a tardbotshill like yourself. IndieTX - I think the closet is where he hides his pics of Jeff Gannon. AGAviator - Flock you, troll. SKYDRIFTER - answer the question, Fuck-Head! AGAviator - you illiterate ass-wipe HOUNDDAWG - And, BeAFluffer, now that AGAviator has nailed your ass to the outhouse door I think I'll just walk away with my nose in the air, and ROTFLMAO! AGAviator - You pathetic turd. christine - perfect. SKYDRIFTER - Fuck you, BAC! SKYDRIFTER - Take a hint, asshole HOUNDDAWG - Hear Hear! SKYDRIFTER - No one is "begging' - just fucking leave, asshole! Dakmar - Repetition does not make truth, fuck-face.
If you choose to be a skillful but polite and respectful debater,
#308. To: christine, ALL (#301)
Then you'll have no problem with me posting. It can only make you folks look even smarter.
well said, dak. everyone else but the delusional government toady can see his ass has been kicked a hundred ways to sunday on this forum. it's also apparent to most that he's a collossal waste of time.
#309. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#306)
No. Unlike you, SKYDRIFTER, I have never tried to sneak onto a forum or post from multiple accounts simultaneously.
Say, BAC, there's a "person" with your posting and response style over at ElPee - "Sweetjustusnow;" is that really you?
#310. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#309)
Yeah, you do lack imagination and initiative. I'll give you that. Unlike you, SKYDRIFTER, I have never tried to sneak onto a forum or post from multiple accounts simultaneously.
#311. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#308)
"We" demonstrate the element of integrity which you gave up, long ago. You really suck the big one, BAC! It can only make you folks look even smarter.
#312. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#307)
You know your place, don't you, BAC? You're that bad. Really bad! Now, why don't you be a good lad and just fucking leave? (Ah, your handlers won't let you - okay!)
#313. To: BeAChooser (#290) (Edited)
Exactly one You sure? Yes I'm sure. Add 30,000+ from the Baghdad morgue and another 19,000+ from the Health Ministry which counts hospitals, and what you come with? They break down their 50,000 total right in the middle of the article. Baghdad morgue + Health Ministry = 50,000. At least 50,000, dummy. The 50,000 number that you have been spamming does not include any "at leasts." They may have *visited* morgues, but they did not *count* the totals of the morgues in their 50,000 total that you have been spamming. Any more dumb questions?
Do you know how many morgues the LA Times included in its total of your 50,000 death certificates you illiterate ass-wipe?
Because I quoted one of the authors of the LATimes story, Borzou Daragahi saying "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."
MorgueS. With an S.
#314. To: BeAChooser (#307)
scrapper2 - Look oozer I would rather walk into traffic than "give up" to a tardbotshill like yourself. Geez Louise you take yourself so seriously, BAC - this is the net, boy - suck it up or move on - who cares what scrapper says to BeAChooser or vice versa - we don't know each other - how do you cope with real life's ills and real life meanies, I wonder... So you think my comments are impolite? Well, let's do a walk down memory lane and put my comments in context - uh huh, if truth be told, since you inflicted me ( and others) with reams and reams of your BOT weekly standard, newsmax spam, I think most people "out there" in cyberspace and maybe even the judges at the International Court of Justice would rule that my remarks showed remarkable restraint considering what I suffered through this long neverending discussion thread. You're twice my weight ( though half my IQ) so we're even - quit your whining, BAC. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.
scrapper2 - I swear, BAC, you continually show yourself to be an unparalleled numbskull.
#315. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2, christine, skydrifter, Hounddawg (#291)
What bears repeating is that the 50,000 number you've been spamming for months is only one morgue, and some guesstimates by the Iraq Health Ministry covering two years. Furthermore, almost none of those of those bodies that showed up in the Baghdad morgue and the Iraq hospitals were killed by American or Iraqi government soldiers. So you can add deaths caused by Americans and their Iraqi surrogates to that 50,000 number. Reason? Who in his right mind can imagine a military unit killing people, then carefully picking up the bodies, driving across town through potential ambushes with them, then giving them to hospitals amd morgues where it's possible some doctors would discover - or claim to discover- evidence of war crimes in autopsies? Just about anybody who gets killed by military units stays right where he died, unless some relatives or some passers by decide to do something about the bodies laying there. Another reason your 50,000 total is bogus.
Here's what bears repeating:
#316. To: SKYDRIFTER, BeAChooser, Christine, scrapper2 (#305)
I've got a better idea. Every time BeABozo demands proof of something that is factually obvious and should not need any proof - like Iraqi doctors being able to write death certificates - Then, when the item in question is objectively proved beyond any reasonable doubt, BeABozo gets a suspension or a termination. "ROTFLOL!!!"
I'd like to see at least a 30-day suspension for BAC; with the understanding that he'll come back in the "spam-free" mode; or else. If BAC could stay "spam- free" for Goldi, he can do so for the 4-um.
#317. To: BeAChooser, dakmar (#297)
But for the most part they haven't done that Whenever you get faced with facts you cannot deal with, you bend over backwards to disort what the other person says as I've already pointed out to you several times. Another one of your tricks is to demand further proof when you have been rebutted. You apparently believe that as long as you can post you haven't been rebutted.
Now FD4UMers could challenge those facts and logic with credible sourced articles and logic of their own.
#318. To: BeAChooser (#307) (Edited)
Anybody who repeatedly distorts what others say the way you do, and thinks that hundreds of thousands of deaths is funny - as in your incessant, inane "ROTFLOL's" - is a "pathetic turd" beyond any doubt. So up yours, twerp [Gritting teeth in attempt to be civil].
#319. To: BeAChooser, christine (#307)
If you choose to be a skillful but polite and respectful debater, You mean like these folks? Minerva - starts a thread titled "BeAChooser Bozo Count at 40 Plus and Counting - A Possible Site Record" orangedog - Ignore him to death and he'll fade away like a bad fart. Red Jones - BAC is the guy on the left. Diana - He's a bad egg. Diana - There is no intellect present in an exceedingly dishonest poster with a very questionable agenda. SKYDRIFTER - I've long accused BAC of being queer rowdee - Di, dear lady, just tell the bastard to go fuck himself and get it over with! rowdee - Being the nice sweet lady you are makes this turd-faced jerkoff bolder. IndieTX - Low intellect, psychotic, no talent..paranoid..delusions of grandeur [save the world from kooks] and perhaps, "sexually disoriented" = Chimp = Insane. Nostalgia - The fucker's maniacal with that ROTFLOL! Elliot Jackalope - Just make him a dustmop suit, and let him post in a room that needs the floors cleaned..... SKYDRIFTER - you Mossadite piece of shit, scrapper2 - Eat it. christine - well done, honway. see this is the kind of information which is being exposed because of the sad little specimen of a troll. innieway - "I'M DONE WITH YOUR SATANIST ASS Jethro Tull - Dump his Zionist, blood dancing ass. scrapper2 - I swear, BAC, you continually show yourself to be an unparalleled numbskull. scrapper2 - Look oozer I would rather walk into traffic than "give up" to a tardbotshill like yourself. IndieTX - I think the closet is where he hides his pics of Jeff Gannon. AGAviator - Flock you, troll. SKYDRIFTER - answer the question, Fuck-Head! AGAviator - you illiterate ass-wipe HOUNDDAWG - And, BeAFluffer, now that AGAviator has nailed your ass to the outhouse door I think I'll just walk away with my nose in the air, and ROTFLMAO! AGAviator - You pathetic turd. christine - perfect. SKYDRIFTER - Fuck you, BAC! SKYDRIFTER - Take a hint, asshole HOUNDDAWG - Hear Hear! SKYDRIFTER - No one is "begging' - just fucking leave, asshole! Dakmar - Repetition does not make truth, fuck-face Okay, then, you admit that this is no longer about debate but rather your attempt to get even for wounds to your fragile ego? Assuming I could have secured your agreement to make peace it would be the good people here who would be forgiving you, more than vice versa. I'd be willing to bet that you were obnoxious first, relentlessly and unnecessarily before anyone turned on you. But, I'm not going to research that because your problem is now obvious. And, I had to at least try. You don't bother me and in the end I promise it will be you who is gone, not any of your "tormentors". So, it's your loss that you didn't apologize and allow me to try and make peace on your behalf. Time out is over, people. He's all yours. _________________________________________--- BTW, I had to quote BAC's entire post for the benefit of the dozens of folks who have him Bozo'ed. And, at a place like 4 that is the mark of shame.
To: HOUNDDAWG, ALL
#320. To: HOUNDDAWG (#319)
There is no evidence that BAC is here to investigate or honestly debate the facts. His history on LP and now here is one of only distortion and disinfo, always siding with the Bush regime and GOP talking points; for example, his two recent threads on the "innocence" of convicted Scooter Libby. Or the smearing of anyone who presents facts that make the Bush regime look bad, like Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski. In this post, rowdee displays the disinfo tactics employed by BAC, to try and make Karen Kwiatkowski appear inaccurate. Since it is unlikely that anyone would waste their time doing this for free, it is a safe assumption that he is a paid shill. On LP, patriots who tried to present the truth were threatened with being "reported" by posters just like BAC. For example, Beckett Saunders, even posted that he was paid to report on posters. So, putting such posters on Bozo, is really very reasonable.
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#321. To: HOUNDDAWG (#319) (Edited)
This thread itself is a perfect example of BeABozo's demagoguery. (S)he has continually repeated assertions about "missing death certificates" ad nauseum complete with the inane "ROTFLOL's" almost any time hundreds of thousands of potential deaths are mentioned. But when a critical piece of factual evidence emerges - namely that his/her most basic assumption that only hospitals and morgues can issue death certificates is totally false - (s)he implies the source is lying and demands proof. With no support from posters, (s)he addresses remarks to a pretend audience of non-posters and claims to be winning the discussion. I'd be willing to bet that you were obnoxious first, relentlessly and unnecessarily before anyone turned on you. But, I'm not going to research that because your problem is now obvious.
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#322. To: AGAviator, ALL (#313)
Actually, I've made it quite clear numerous times that I don't object to the notion the number is twice or even three times that. Just not ten times that number. Because the evidence (and logic) simply does not support that assertion.
The 50,000 number that you have been spamming does not include any "at leasts."
#323. To: AGAviator, SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#316)
Is it factually obvious that the media (including media that is decidedly friendly with the *resistance*) would love nothing better than to show the US slaughtered more than half a million Iraqis and covered it up? Is it factually obvious that the media (including media that is decidely unfriendly to the US) hasn't documented such a slaughter? No photos. No videos. Is it factually obvious that half a million slaughtered Iraqis would fill quite a few cemeteries and mass graves? Is it factually obvious that scores of forensic types in Iraq who are scouring Iraq looking for bodies and graves, many of whom haven't been all that friendly to the US in the past, haven't found any traces of this supposed slaughter? Is it factually obvious that not one named Iraqi doctor has come forward to say they wrote a hundred (or hundreds) of death certificates and never bothered to notify anyone? Is it factually obvious that a slaughter of this magnitude would require significantly depopulating areas of the country where it's claimed the violence has predominantly been? Is it factually obvious that those areas haven't been significantly depopulated or at least no one in the media or any other source has reported that depopulation? Ignoring the fact that you haven't proven anything "beyond any reasonable doubt", much less a little doubt, does that suggestion of yours work both ways? For example, when SKYDRIFTER claims the hole in the pentagon was only 17 or 20 feet in diameter, and photos show that is totally untrue, does he get a suspension or termination? And how about you ... for example, when you insist repeatedly that a certain graph shows housing prices dropping 16 percent in a year, and it doesn't, what happens?
I've got a better idea. Every time BeABozo demands proof of something that is factually obvious and should not need any proof - like Iraqi doctors being able to write death certificates -
Then, when the item in question is objectively proved beyond any reasonable doubt, BeABozo gets a suspension or a termination.
#324. To: HOUNDDAWG, ALL (#319)
I haven't admitted that. What I did is post quotes that you seem to think are respectful debate. I'll let visitors to FD4UM decide if you are right. A promise? Usually one makes promises when one can guarantee something. Can you guarantee this? Do you have some *in* with FD4UM's management? And why will that happen? Because of my posting factual articles and sound logic that don't follow the FD4UM party line? Because I remain civil in the face of such *respectful* *debators*? Shame? Do you think folks can make good decisions or know the facts when they listen to only half the arguments? ROTFLOL!
Okay, then, you admit that this is no longer about debate but rather your attempt to get even for wounds to your fragile ego?
You don't bother me and in the end I promise it will be you who is gone,
BTW, I had to quote BAC's entire post for the benefit of the dozens of folks who have him Bozo'ed. And, at a place like 4 that is the mark of shame.
#325. To: robin, ALL (#320)
Now, robin, that is a complete misrepresentation of my posting history at LibertyPost. I have voiced many disagreements with Bush and the GOP. For starters, I was against their moving on where the crimes of the Clinton Administration and democRAT party are concerned. I even went so far as to accuse Bush and the GOP of being complicit in those crimes by ignoring them. And I've been on opposite sides of the fence in such matters as Campaign Finance Reform, the Senior Drug program, and working with Ted Kennedy to increase spending in schools (when all they do is propagandize children with democRAT ideas). I've been for building a fence along our southern borders to curtail illegal immigration and have made some very negative posts about Bush and the GOP for not doing that. And that's just off the top of my head. To claim that I am "always" siding with Bush and the GOP is only distortion and disinfo ... on your part. More disinfo. Those threads weren't on the "innocence" of Libby. They pointed out that the prosecution of Libby was POLITICALLY motivated, not a matter of law. They show that numerous others have done much worse and not been prosecuted (some would call that selective prosecution which is a violation of our Constitution). Also, those two articles show that others in this case (such as Wilson) actually did lie ... even lied to Congress. And nothing happened. But obviously you missed those little details in your *reading* of the two articles. I didn't smear her. I simply pointed out THE FACT that she claims (based on being there) that the hole in the Pentagon was less than 20 feet across. Yet photos from that day (some of which I posted) clearly show the hole was much, much larger than that. She also claims (based on supposedly being there) that there was no debris from the plane. But again, photos and other eyewitnesses demonstrate that claim is untrue. So when she claims (based again on insider knowledge) that something about Iran is true, are we to believe her? She was inaccurate. Surely you aren't trying to claim the hole in the Pentagon was less than 20 feet across and there was no debris. Because I would be happy to post the photos proving that untrue again. ROTFLOL! You can't handle the notion that others, beside you, care about the truth? Rather than face that possibility, you'd rather believe that *someone* is paying *others* to post on tiny internet forums like FD4UM? ROTFLOL! I never threatened to report anyone, robin. More disinfo BY YOU.
His history on LP and now here is one of only distortion and disinfo, always siding with the Bush regime and GOP talking points;
his two recent threads on the "innocence" of convicted Scooter Libby.
Or the smearing of anyone who presents facts that make the Bush regime look bad, like Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski.
In this post, rowdee displays the disinfo tactics employed by BAC, to try and make Karen Kwiatkowski appear inaccurate.
Since it is unlikely that anyone would waste their time doing this for free, it is a safe assumption that he is a paid shill.
On LP, patriots who tried to present the truth were threatened with being "reported" by posters just like BAC.
#326. To: AGAviator, ALL (#321)
So you think the only folks who read FD4UM are the hundred or so members who occasionally post?
With no support from posters, (s)he addresses remarks to a pretend audience of non-posters and claims to be winning the discussion.
#327. To: All, rowdee (#320)
I do believe readers who haven't been around the stage of life could be taken in by such a little tactic as putting in bold a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph as though that is the point while conveniently omitting anything which completes a person's thought on that particular matter. Imagine that......Disinformation 201. I am reposting the main part of rowdee's post, also highlighting the important part that makes Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski's eyewitness, (for those of you in Rio Linda, that means she was there at the Pentagon on 9/11), account totally believable and accurate. BAC highlighted the previous sentence, which is just another example of his disinfo technique as noted by rowdee in her post.
"I would think that if a 100-plus-ton aircraft constructed of relatively lightweight materials and designed for lift, loaded with passenger seating, luggage, odds and ends and passengers, going several hundred miles an hour were to hit the Pentagon, it would cause a great deal of possibly superficial but visible damage to the wide swath of the side of the building and the entire area of impact. But I did not see this kind of damage. Rather, the façade had a rather small hole, no larger than 20 feet in diameter. Although this façade later collapsed, it remained standing for 30 or 40 minutes, with the roof line remaining relatively straight.
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#328. To: robin, ALL (#327)
Why bold that part and not the part about the hole being "no larger than 20 feet in diameter", robin? Are you claiming she remained at the Pentagon for 30 to 40 minutes after the attack and watched the facade collapse? Maybe she did but does this in any way make her "no larger than 20 feet in diameter" hole claim accurate? Does the statement that the roof line remained relatively straight change that claim about hole size in any way? Isn't it the 20 foot diameter claim that is used to assert that a commercial jet didn't hit the Pentagon, not the claim that the facade didn't collapse right away or remained relatively straight? Why bold the part you did, robin? It doesn't seem to me the key claim. Now in case you missed the photos that prove the 20 foot claim is nonsense, here: "Rather, the façade had a rather small hole, no larger than 20 feet in diameter. Although this façade later collapsed, it remained standing for 30 or 40 minutes, with the roof line remaining relatively straight.
... snip ...
I am reposting the main part of rowdee's post, also highlighting the important part that makes Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski's eyewitness, (for those of you in Rio Linda, that means she was there at the Pentagon on 9/11), account totally believable and accurate.
Left side and center hole damage 
central hole and right side damage 
Right side damage. 
Collage of what the damage looked like pre-collapse 
region impacted compared to size of plane 
light pole damage and damaged columns
#329. To: All (#327)
I do believe readers who haven't been around the stage of life could be taken in by such a little tactic as putting in bold a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph as though that is the point while conveniently omitting anything which completes a person's thought on that particular matter. Imagine that......Disinformation 201. I am reposting the main part of rowdee's post, also highlighting the important part that makes Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski's eyewitness, (for those of you in Rio Linda, that means she was there at the Pentagon on 9/11), account totally believable and accurate. BAC highlighted the previous sentence, which is just another example of his disinfo technique as noted by rowdee in her post. Since BAC only highlighted the previous sentence, and rowdee reposted his misleading post, she was counter-balancing that distortion by highlighting what the eyewitness, a Lt.Col. had also observed to show how he deliberately misled people in his "proof" that the Lt.Col. was inaccurate. And in the FULL CONTEXT, SHE WAS MOST ACCURATE. BAC is 100% DISINFO. He only makes my point with every post. BTW, the Scooter Libby threads BAC posted were trying to claim that Scooter was innocent AND that it was politically motivated. More disinfo. In I call for Justice" the author states: I call for justice for Scooter Libby because he has had none in this ridiculous matter. But at whose door do I stand to shout my curses? Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame who cooked up a series of lies to undermine the Administration in the middle of the war? Talk about disinfo on disinfo on disinfo. Where to begin? The facts, the courts, the judge and jury all say Scooter is guilty. The article claims he did not receive justice and then smears Wilson and his wife. Wow! The liars are in our midst trying to claim they haven't just posted disinfo before our very eyes.
"I would think that if a 100-plus-ton aircraft constructed of relatively lightweight materials and designed for lift, loaded with passenger seating, luggage, odds and ends and passengers, going several hundred miles an hour were to hit the Pentagon, it would cause a great deal of possibly superficial but visible damage to the wide swath of the side of the building and the entire area of impact. But I did not see this kind of damage. Rather, the façade had a rather small hole, no larger than 20 feet in diameter. Although this façade later collapsed, it remained standing for 30 or 40 minutes, with the roof line remaining relatively straight.
Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is. ~George W. Bush
(About the quote: Speaking on the war in Kosovo.)
#330. To: robin, all (#329)
Isn't the part about the hole being "no larger than 20 feet in diameter" the heart of her accusation, robin? Afterall, the supposed size of the hole is what makes it being caused by Flight77 *impossible*. Not the fact that that the facade didn't collapse for another 30 minutes or the roof line remained relatively straight. So why are your avoiding that part of her quote, robin? Do you believe the hole is "no larger than 20 feet in diameter"? Do you believe that one could still HONESTLY claim the hole was no larger than 20 feet given all the photos available showing a hole much larger than 20 feet? He did not say he was innocent. He said he didn't get JUSTICE. And there is a difference. Because JUSTICE should be blind. But it clearly wasn't in this case. Or a whole bunch of folks, including Wilson, would now be in jail. Hey robin, here's something for you to consider ... *********** http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGZlYWYwMmVhMTQ1MDhkMWY3Zjc2MWI2NzgxMTVkYTQ= Libby [Bill Bennett] One simple observation about the Libby trial and the celebrations by the media, the Left, and the Joe Wilsons: Now that we have established that no rock and no expense will be left unturned and unspent, that no reporter involved will be left unsubpoenaed for leaking or even purportedly leaking a classified agent's name, when we have some suspicion that a person who works at the CIA might be covert (but turns out not to be): Can we please begin the investigation and subpoenaing of journalists—also known as witnesses to a crime—for leaking classified national-security information in a time of war?! —I'm not making a partisan point, I'm making a serious point about serious breaches of law and public endangerment; I'm not talking about disgruntled spouses with political differences with the president, I'm talking about the disclosure of the most serious war-time planning and procedures to keep our country safe. I'm talking about disclosing the secret detention facilities of high-value terrorists, I'm talking about the disclosure of terrorist surveillance programs, I'm talking about the disclosure of the Treasury Department's SWIFT program that tracked terrorist financing—all of which are now caput because insiders leaked to the press and the press willingly published these classified secrets—-NONE of the programs that were leaked were illegal, all of them were of great value, all of them are over or changed as a result of the disclosure. —Can we please start a serious investigation of those, and by all means subpoena the witnesses, that is to say the reporters. If you can do it to nail bit players in a seemingly innocent disclosure of Valerie Plame's name where her husband started the process, then you can certainly do it over serious anti-terrorism programs that were of the highest level of classification. —As for the import of Libby's conviction and Joe Wilson's allegations? I can't do better than Mark Steyn who wrote yesterday here on The Corner: "an anti-war deputy secretary of an anti-war department leaking to an anti-war reporter the name of an anti-war analyst who got her anti-war husband a job with an anti-war agency is supposedly an elaborate “conspiracy” by Cheney, Rove and the other warmongers. Looked at more prosaically, it’s a freak intersection of bad personnel decisions, which is one of the worst features of this presidency. So many of the Bush administration’s wounds come from its willingness to keep the wrong people in key positions: Tenet should not have been retained at the CIA, Armitage should not have been at State." **********
And in the FULL CONTEXT, SHE WAS MOST ACCURATE.
I call for justice for Scooter Libby because he has had none in this ridiculous matter.
#331. To: beachooser (#323)
BAC - You and your freakin' lies! The purported entry hole is approximately 17 feet wide, with a broad range of peripheral damage - none of which allows for a 757 to enter. BAC, you are one slimy and stinking piece of shit! For example, when SKYDRIFTER claims the hole in the pentagon was only 17 or 20 feet in diameter, and photos show that is totally untrue, does he get a suspension or termination?
#332. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#330)
Show me the entry "hole" bigger than 20 feet. There was a broad range of damage, but the central hole didn't exceed 20 feet. Well, asshole .............. ? ..... showing a hole much larger than 20 feet?
#333. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#328)
Looking to the purported There is no amount of damage to suggest anything "penetrating," greater than 20 feet. Notice the flames on the floor of the second story - the floor is still there. That also leaves less than 20 feet vertically, to fit the entirety of a 757. BUT - Let's say the wings folded. Did they spring back into shape, after penetrating the facade; like a switch-blade? If not, what caused that damage to the right side; you know, the part that collapsed? There is no forward-moving damage to the portion to the right of the purported entry hole - the damage is lateral. How does one do that, with a 300 Knot 757? C'mon, BAC, you fuck-face; give us your "facts!" 
#334. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#333)
Just curious, SKYDRIFTER ... Which direction do you think the columns in this image have been displaced. To the left or the right? There is no forward-moving damage to the portion to the right of the purported entry hole - the damage is lateral.
#335. To: AGAviator (#321)
i'm amused. ;)
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#336. To: AGAviator (#321)
boy, did you nail her/him on that one.
With no support from posters, (s)he addresses remarks to a pretend audience of non-posters and claims to be winning the discussion.
#337. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#334)
Which direction do you think the columns in this image have been displaced. To the left or the right? They are clearly displaced to the left - with no suggestion of 300 knot damage. Add that the obstructions deny that anything hit the columns from the front. Yeah, BAC, you continue to be a fucking LIAR!
#338. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#337)
The image isn't adequate to tell whether they are also displaced inward. But what would cause them to be displaced to the left, SKYDRIFTER?
They are clearly displaced to the left
#339. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#338)
But what would cause them to be displaced to the left, SKYDRIFTER? Bullshit, BAC! the columns are clearly not impacted by anything which approaches 300 knots - in any direction. Clearly some internal charges were used, thus the "event" time got displaced to a non-seismic time frame. Two fallen clocks say 9:31 - 9:32.
The image isn't adequate to tell whether they are also displaced inward.
#340. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#339)
Internal charges would cause them to displace to the left?
Clearly some internal charges were used,
#341. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#340)
Well, d'oh! The columns (wall panels) damned sure didn't displace to the right, on the right-hand side of the purported entry hole. That is to say, the wall panels, versus the 30-inch reinforced support columns, in the interior. Notice that the damage is at ground level, where the purported aircraft couldn't possibly reach. (Damn, BAC, you sure succeeded in getting this thread off-topic. But, you're still an asshole!)
Internal charges would cause them to displace to the left?
#342. To: BeAChooser (#326)
Fewer than that, for anyone considering wading through your effluent.
So you think the only folks who read FD4UM are the hundred or so members who occasionally post?
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#343. To: BeAChooser (#322)
Evidence and logic most certainly does support that assertion. The United States has spent more than a trillion to prosecute this conflict, and has incurred more than 40,000 casualties when mercenaries are included in the total. There have been tens of thousands of missions, both in the air and on the ground, and enormous quantities of ordnance expended which is continually being replaced with more ordnance that also gets expended. Yet magically all this ordnance never ever kills hardly anybody. There would be something seriously wrong with a supposedly powerful military spending tens of millions to kill every single person, and incurring casualties of its own at only a third of the casualties it causes. Your response is to bring in some wacky argument out of left field that it's really not a trillion because there are unspecified and unrealized "benefits" you make up out of the whole cloth, and to assert without any proof that if the casualties were that massive the Bush-hating media would surely report it. Even though all the media gave Bush free rein both to invade and continue the war. As far as you missing death certificate demagoguery, that has been completly annihilated on this thread. A newspaper simply added up the total deaths from a single Baghdad morgue, and the estimates from the Health Ministry for the violent deaths recorded at the hospitals, and said the total was far greater than those two numbers combined. But you in your typical spamming and obfuscatory style are trying to extrapolate those off-hand comments to an entire population. And again, last but not least, any death counts from hospitals and morgues has only a very tiny fraction of people killed by the Americans or their Iraqi puppets because military units do not kill people and then take their bodies to morgues and hospitals. So that means the military- caused deaths are a completely different number fron any hospital and morgue death totals.
I've made it quite clear numerous times that I don't object to the notion the number is twice or even three times that. Just not ten times that number. Because the evidence (and logic) simply does not support that assertion.
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#344. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#341)
Well I'm just curious about the forces involved. A displacement to the left would suggest a force coming from the right. Right? Have no idea what you are talking about, SKYDRIFTER. The plane could have reached everywhere there is damage in that image. You do know the dimensions of Flight77, don't you?
"Internal charges would cause them to displace to the left?"
Well, d'oh!
Notice that the damage is at ground level, where the purported aircraft couldn't possibly reach.
#345. To: AGAviator, ALL (#343)
Well you've made your case, I've made mine. I'm content to let lurkers and visitors to FD4UM weigh the evidence presented by both of us and reach a conclusion. Not true. The US has not "spent" more than a trillion prosecuting the war in Iraq. No one is suggesting that. Hyperbole becomes you, AGAviator. No, because a trillion dollars has not been "spent" so far. I doubt you can find a responsible source that actually claims that. As to the benefits, the notion that there might be benefits is not wacky at all. What would be wacky is suggesting that there would be no benefit to turning Iraq into a wealthy, pro-American, anti-terrorist democratic republic in the middle of the arab world. What is wacky is suggesting there is no benefit to keeping Iraq from becoming a safe haven for al-Zarqawi style terrorists. The media has hardly given Bush a "free rein" to invade and continue the war. To even suggest that shows how out of touch you really are, AGAviator. Right. I'm more than content to let lurkers and visitors to FD4UM decide if that's really the case. The important thing is that now they know there were two sides to the story ... not just the one that FD4UMers have been spreading without debate. I'll close by repeating what IraqBodyCount had to say in summary (and they by no means point out all the problems with the John Hopkins work) and by directing folks to links that further explore the IBC points. ********** From http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that: 1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms; 2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment; 3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq; 4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued; 5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja. And this: If these assertions are true, they further imply: * incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began; * bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis; * the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas; * an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year. In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy. ************ http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/0.php http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/1.php http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/2.php http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/3.php http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr14/4.php "I've made it quite clear numerous times that I don't object to the notion the number is twice or even three times that. Just not ten times that number. Because the evidence (and logic) simply does not support that assertion."
Evidence and logic most certainly does support that assertion.
The United States has spent more than a trillion to prosecute this conflict,
Yet magically all this ordnance never ever kills hardly anybody.
Your response is to bring in some wacky argument out of left field that it's really not a trillion because there are unspecified and unrealized "benefits" you make up out of the whole cloth,
and to assert without any proof that if the casualties were that massive the Bush-hating media would surely report it. Even though all the media gave Bush free rein both to invade and continue the war.
As far as you missing death certificate demagoguery, that has been completly annihilated on this thread.
#346. To: christine (#336)
“All of us should treasure his (John Dillinger) Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."” --- Robert Anton Wilson
“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.” --- Robert Anton Wilson
#347. To: gengis gandhi, christine, all (#346)
And what would those bozoing someone in order block receiving fact filled posts be?
Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.”
#348. To: BeAChooser (#347)
that would be ignoring a fool. fuckwit. now put on your helmet and go outside and play, bitch.
“All of us should treasure his (John Dillinger) Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."” --- Robert Anton Wilson
“Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission.” --- Robert Anton Wilson
#349. To: gengis gandhi, ALL (#348)
"Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point.
#350. To: AGAviator, Christine, Critter, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#343)
Let me tell you how it supposed to be; Should five per cent appear too small, (if speak about a car;) - I’ll spam about the whole damned street; Spam-man! 'Cause I’m the spam-man, Don't ask me what I do it for, (ah-ah, mister Bush) Now my advice about those who die, (spam-man) And you're working for no one but me. Never forget - I'm the Spam-man! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah - BAC's the Spam-Man!
There's line one from you, nineteen from me.
'Cause I’m the spam-man,
Yeah, I’m the spam-man.
Be thankful I don't spam it all.
'Cause I’m the spam-man,
Yeah, I’m the spam-man.
(if you try to stay put;) - I’ll spam about your feet;
(if you start to get cold;) - I’ll spam with all the heat;
(if you take a short walk;) - I'll spam about your feet.
Yeah, I’m the spam-man.
If you don't want to pay attention. (ah-ah, mister Blair)
'Cause I’m the spam-man,
Yeah, I’m the spam-man.
I’ll put a penny over each eye. (spam-man)
'Cause I’m the spam-man,
Yeah, I’m the spam-man.
#351. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#350)
A displacement to the left would suggest a force coming from the right. Right?
#352. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#351)
Well, d'oh; for sure, for sure! (Not to the tune of 300 knots at ground level! Something about no trenching in front of the building, add no obstacles pushed into the building.) Or, do you expect common sense to be 'credentialed?' A displacement to the left would suggest a force coming from the right. Right?
#353. To: SKYDRIFTER, christine (#352)
BAC'S story was a highly coordinated set-up with the help of goldilicks to get the spook and agent provacatuer an excuse to come here. He should be banned. He is not who he claims.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#354. To: IndieTX (#353)
BAC's on a mission, that's for sure. I suspect he was pre-placed for the Iran operation. Among other things, he's been way too polite for his usual style. I suspect Christine is keen to his possible motives and mission.
#355. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#352)
So what created that force if it wasn't from an impacting wing coming from the right?
A displacement to the left would suggest a force coming from the right. Right?
Well, d'oh; for sure, for sure!
#356. To: IndieTX, ALL (#353)
ROTFLOL! Here's the real story, folks: http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=45230&Disp=75#C75 Isn't it amazing that so many FD4UM members are anxious to get rid of a poster who has been courteous, who hasn't labeled anyone or called anyone a name while at FD4UM, who hasn't been the least bit vulgar, who has posted hundreds of sourced facts about topics that should be of interest, and who has been willing to debate their accuracy whenever challenged? Instead of responding in kind, FD4UMers have used the bozo filter in large numbers to avoid reading any of those posts, have thrown out mountains of adhominems and directed rivers of vulgar language at that poster, have begged that poster to leave, have called for his banning, and are now suggesting without any proof whatsoever that he's part of some zionist conspiracy. ROTFLOL! Beware the dot!
BAC'S story was a highly coordinated set-up with the help of goldilicks to get the spook and agent provacatuer an excuse to come here. He should be banned. He is not who he claims.
#357. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#356)
Nobody likes or respects you, BAC; take a freakin' hint! In fact, I have to stand in line to despise you! ROTFLOL!
#358. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#357)
So what created that force if it wasn't from an impacting wing coming from the right?
#359. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#358)
Oh, you really wanted an answer - Obviously explosive charges. Note that the vertical members are displaced in near parallel. They are NOT compressed into each other. (Didn't notice, did you, asshole! That's not forward-moving energy from a 300- knot 757.) OR; would you have someone believe that the wing turned into a razor blade & slid underneath the breached members, at ground level? BAC, you're out-gunned on this one, cut your losses! So what created that force if it wasn't from an impacting wing coming from the right?
#360. To: beachooser, Critter, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#359)
Obviously explosive charges. Note that the vertical members are displaced in near parallel. They are NOT compressed into each other. Hmmmm. I guess I left that out of my web site - Thanks for another editing lesson, BAC! You did it AGAIN! {:-)) {You just don't fucking learn, BAC!}
#361. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#359)
So you think they placed explosive charges on the face of the building and then set them off in coordination with whatever it was that hit the Pentagon? What did hit the Pentagon and what created the hole on the left side of the central hole? More explosives?
""So what created that force if it wasn't from an impacting wing coming from the right?"
Obviously explosive charges.
#362. To: BeAChooser (#345)
Your pretend audience again. Wise up. The treatment you got on ElPee is the rule, not the exception, of people reacting to you and your posts. It is true. Incurring debts, regardless of whether they are paid at the time of incurring the debt, is spending money under the accrual method of accounting which every reputable corporation uses. How many combatants and non-combatants have been killed? January 7 2006: Iraq War Could Cost $2 Trillion, Says Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist Ignoring for the moment the sheer lunacy of trying to offset real money spent with hypothetical feel-good arm-waving about Iraq being America-friendly...What evidence do you have at all that Iraq is on its way to your desired outcome of being wealthy, anti-terrorist, and not a safe haven for jihadis - Or Mahdi Army types. Cite some major publications or media outlets opposing the invasion in 2003, or even advocating an immediate and unconditional pullout at this late date, instead of trying to bluster and bluff your way out of this. Yes, Freedom4um has a "Silent Majority!" "ROTFLOL!" Iraq Body Count sits in its offices and compiles online media reports in English-speaking websites. If nobody bothered to post any reports of deaths in Iraq onto an English speaking website, as far as Iraq Body Count is concerned the deaths never happened.
I'm content to let lurkers and visitors to FD4UM weigh the evidence presented by both of us and reach a conclusion.
The US has not "spent" more than a trillion prosecuting the war in Iraq.
Yet magically all this ordnance never ever kills hardly anybody.
No one is suggesting that. Hyperbole becomes you, AGAviator.
No, because a trillion dollars has not been "spent" so far. I doubt you can find a responsible source that actually claims that.
As to the benefits, the notion that there might be benefits is not wacky at all. What would be wacky is suggesting that there would be no benefit to turning Iraq into a wealthy, pro-American, anti-terrorist democratic republic in the middle of the arab world. What is wacky is suggesting there is no benefit to keeping Iraq from becoming a safe haven for al-Zarqawi style terrorists.
The media has hardly given Bush a "free rein" to invade and continue the war. To even suggest that shows how out of touch you really are, AGAviator.
Right. I'm more than content to let lurkers and visitors to FD4UM decide if that's really the case.
I'll close by repeating what Iraq Body Count had to say in summary
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#363. To: AGAviator, ALL (#362)
COULD cost. Corporations do that all the time. Invest in POTENTIAL future returns. So do countries. Well up until recently, the statements of the soldiers over there. But now they are getting disheartened (curiously, since democRATS took over the House and Senate) so perhaps that outcome is looking a little less likely. How about Democracy Now's Amy Goodman? It airs on over 500 radio and television stations, on cable TV, and on satellite television networks in North America. You think she favored the invasion? http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/mooney-war.asp "Here’s what these six editorial pages did write, during the crucial six-week period between Powell’s speech and the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003. They ranged from hawkish without a shade of doubt (The Wall Street Journal and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Tribune), to prowar but conflicted (The Washington Post and USA Today), to antiwar without United Nations approval (The New York Times and Los Angeles Times). None of these six unconditionally opposed war. Neither did any of them throw their weight behind intellectually appealing, but nevertheless unofficial, prowar arguments." And here's an example of how quickly major media began the effort to weaken America's will in what the administration was even then saying was going to be a long struggle: "The Death of Innocents",The New York Times, April 1, 2003. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. The Bush administration had envisioned a different kind of invasion in Iraq, one that would flood the Arab world with pictures of American soldiers feeding hungry people and giving medical attention to sick children. Instead, billions around the globe are seeing and hearing reports that women and children were gunned down yesterday while riding in a civilian van at an American checkpoint." The invasion was still underway. The focus was already on every possible bad thing they could highlight. And it still is... Here's another: The Washington Post , April 3, 2003, "The weekend before the war started, President Bush signed on to a statement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledging to "work in close partnership with international institutions, including the United Nations," in postwar Iraq and to seek a Security Council resolution to "endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration." Yet a secretive Pentagon-led group is already far advanced in plans to unilaterally install a postwar regime dominated by Americans and Iraqi exiles -- one that would effectively exclude not only the United Nations but also European and Middle Eastern allies whose support will be essential to stabilizing the country." How about this: The New York Times, April 9, 2003, "American broke Iraq." Or this: The Washington Post , April 16, 2003, "While about 100 Iraqi leaders met under U.S. auspices near Nasiriyah to talk about a democratic future for their country, thousands more were on the streets protesting the meeting, saying they objected equally to Saddam Hussein and to U.S. control over Iraq." The truth, whether you acknowledge it or not, is that most of the mainstream media's attention from day one has been focused on finding fault. Weakening America's will. Making America the bad guy. And if the American media had done the same thing in WW2, we'd have lost that war.
No, because a trillion dollars has not been "spent" so far. I doubt you can find a responsible source that actually claims that.
January 7 2006: Iraq War Could Cost $2 Trillion, Says Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist
Ignoring for the moment the sheer lunacy of trying to offset real money spent with hypothetical feel-good arm-waving about Iraq being America-friendly
What evidence do you have at all that Iraq is on its way to your desired outcome of being wealthy, anti-terrorist, and not a safe haven for jihadis - Or Mahdi Army types.
Cite some major publications or media outlets opposing the invasion in 2003,
#364. To: BeAChooser (#363)
Fifteen months ago. Bass-ackwards. The Democrats got voted in because the soldiers and the general public started saying the war and the Administration's managment of it is a failure. She's a guest columnist. I'm referring to editorials, as evidence of your alleged Bush-hating/America-hating bias. Do you think there should be no guest columnists expressing contrarian views? In other words, they did not stand in Bush's way. Publicizing when American troops commit massacres weakens America's will? Yet you want your own free speech on this website. Absolutely correct. After the invasion So publishing stories about problems is anti-American. Real Americans just accept whatever the government says is true. You really are a sorry POS, and on a free speech website, yet. So people do whatever the media tells them. They can't think for themselves, which is why you want to control the media.
January 7 2006: Iraq War Could Cost $2 Trillion, Says Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist
COULD cost.
What evidence do you have at all that Iraq is on its way to your desired outcome of being wealthy, anti-terrorist, and not a safe haven for jihadis - Or Mahdi Army types.
Well up until recently, the statements of the soldiers over there. But now they are getting disheartened (curiously, since democRATS took over the House and Senate)
Cite some major publications or media outlets opposing the invasion in 2003,
How about Democracy Now's Amy Goodman? It airs on over 500 radio and television stations, on cable TV, and on satellite television networks in North America. You think she favored the invasion?
Here’s what these six editorial pages did write, during the crucial six-week period between Powell’s speech and the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003. They ranged from hawkish without a shade of doubt (The Wall Street Journal and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Tribune), to prowar but conflicted (The Washington Post and USA Today), to antiwar without United Nations approval (The New York Times and Los Angeles Times). None of these six unconditionally opposed war.
And here's an example of how quickly major media began the effort to weaken America's will in what the administration was even then saying was going to be a long struggle: "The Death of Innocents"
Yet a secretive Pentagon-led group is already far advanced in plans to unilaterally install a postwar regime dominated by Americans and Iraqi exiles -- one that would effectively exclude not only the United Nations but also European and Middle Eastern allies whose support will be essential to stabilizing the country."
How about this: The New York Times, April 9, 2003, "American broke Iraq."
The truth, whether you acknowledge it or not, is that most of the mainstream media's attention from day one has been focused on finding fault. Weakening America's will. Making America the bad guy.
And if the American media had done the same thing in WW2, we'd have lost that war.
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#365. To: AGAviator, ALL (#364)
No, soldiers by and large still voted for Republicans. And the general public have been force fed the "we are losing line" by the mainstream media since almost the beginning of the war. Eventually, that had to take a toll on morale and will. Link ANYTHING at Democracy Now that has ever been favorable to the war. "prowar but conflicted (The Washington Post and USA Today), to antiwar without United Nations approval (The New York Times and Los Angeles Times)." And what they ALL proceeded to do was second guess everything the administration and military have done in Iraq. What they ALL preceeded to do was highlight the negative and virtually ignore the positive. If the media in WW2 had reported the war the way this group have, we'd have lost WW2. Massacres is YOUR characterization of it, AGAviator. The sad truth is that innocents die in wars. Always have and always will. In WW2 tens of millions of innocents died. We killed millions. And if the media had reported that conflict the way they've reported this one, the Axis would have won. And then what would the world look like today ... if there even was a world to look at? The Constitution is not a suicide pact. No, the invasion was still underway on April 9, 2003. This is a great example why the mainstream media was negative about US efforts from the beginning. And that has never changed. The US military and administration has been fighting 2 wars since the beginning. One in Iraq and one at home. And the one at home is the one that is losing the one in Iraq. Yes. It can be. War is about Will. Do things that harm your sides will and you are helping the enemy. Do things to bolster the will of the other side and you are helping the enemy. You may not call that anti-American but I do. Is POS a substitute for substantive arguments?
Bass-ackwards. The Democrats got voted in because the soldiers and the general public started saying the war and the Administration's managment of it is a failure.
How about Democracy Now's Amy Goodman? It airs on over 500 radio and television stations, on cable TV, and on satellite television networks in North America. You think she favored the invasion?
She's a guest columnist.
In other words, they did not stand in Bush's way.
Publicizing when American troops commit massacres weakens America's will?
Yet you want your own free speech on this website.
"How about this: The New York Times, April 9, 2003, "American broke Iraq.""
After the invasion
So publishing stories about problems is anti-American.
You really are a sorry POS, and on a free speech website, yet.
#366. To: BeAChooser (#365)
Listen spamboy. Your throwing out your off-the-wall, cockamamie "arguments" at people who post to you is just as much an insult as me calling you your richly deserved epithets. You ignore an entire reply of substantive arguments, then when someone calls you on your obfuscation and your double standards you pretend to be offended. Your whole sthick is that Democrats are anti-American, and the media is anti-American whenever it doesn't act as a mouthpiece for the Republicans whether they are in or out of power. You know what, numbnuts? America was founded on freedom of speech. America was also founded on a multi-party political system with separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. You object to both of those as they are presently working in this country. And you know what that means? It means you are not an American. You're a whiny crybaby who wants a war but too chickenshit to fight in it yourself, and instead tries to lay all the evils of the world at the feet of an opposition political party and a free press. And you do this, as I pointed out, on a free speech website. You're not an American, because you only want freedom for your own opinions, and not those of others that challenge yours. So fuck off and find another country to live in.
Is POS a substitute for substantive arguments?
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#367. To: BeAChooser (#365)
You pretend to be such an expert on war and conflict sitting behind your computer. If you want the war, get your a$$ over there and fight it yourself. Hell, you can earn well over 6 figures tax-free just for driving a truck over there. You wouldn't even need to use a weapon. You lack the courage of your convictions. Like your pretend audience hasn't figured that out a long time ago already.
No, soldiers by and large still voted for Republicans...Eventually, that had to take a toll on morale and will.
If the media in WW2 had reported the war the way this group have, we'd have lost WW2.
The sad truth is that innocents die in wars. Always have and always will. In WW2 tens of millions of innocents died. We killed millions. And if the media had reported that conflict the way they've reported this one, the Axis would have won.
The US military and administration has been fighting 2 wars since the beginning. One in Iraq and one at home. And the one at home is the one that is losing the one in Iraq.
War is about Will. Do things that harm your sides will and you are helping the enemy. Do things to bolster the will of the other side and you are helping the enemy. You may not call that anti-American but I do
Just because [Christine] exercises this type of tolerance for the absurd (ie. you)...doesn't mean she has to smell your droppings up close. - Scrapper2 to BeALooser
#368. To: AGAviator, ALL (#366)
Can we at least agree that when the NYTimes wrote "American broke Iraq" on 4/9/03, the invasion was still underway? Hmmmmmmm?
So fuck off and find another country to live in.
#369. To: AGAviator, ALL (#367)
Can we at least agree that when the NYTimes wrote "American broke Iraq" on 4/9/03, the invasion was still underway? Hmmmmmmm?
You lack the courage of your convictions.
#370. To: lodwick, *4um Admin News* (#228)
The function for ignoring threads is now in place. There's a link after each article for ignoring the thread. It will prevent general comments from appearing on the LC page, though you'll still get any pings made to you should someone do so. It's presently set to last for one week. You can see a list of ignored threads on the setup page -> Content filters.
#371. To: Neil McIver (#370)
Thanks for the additional functionality of 4...when we get "check pings" at the bottom of each page, it will be perfect, imo. Cheers.
#372. To: Neil McIver (#370)
U R awesome.
The function for ignoring threads is now in place.
"First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Mahatma K. Gandhi
#373. To: Neil McIver (#370)
thank you! that's great!
#374. To: christine, Neil McIver (#373)
It is. And guess which thread I'm ignoring first! Please do not post anymore important 4um news to this thread ;P Seriously, it's so easy ( it's almost too easy ).
thank you! that's great!
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#375. To: christine, lodwick, angle, *4um Admin News* (#373) (Edited)
You're quite welcome. BTW, ignored threads will still appear in the title box and headlines page. Ideally it wouldn't but given that the reason is just to prevent a runaway thread from dominating the LC page, it's not that much of a savings to have the title box not show it, especially since it will usually be close to scrolling off the box by the time someone is of the mind to ignore a given thread anyway. The extra work on that part just doesn't seem warranted, at least right now. Just FYI. Also fixed a bug re: bozo counts.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest