The war on Iraq has made moral cowards of us all
POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Sunday, August 23, 2026 21:35
VIEWED: 11894
PAGE 5 of 7
Just to interject... 
From the first paragraph of the article.
The US and British governments quickly moved to cast doubt on the Lancet medical journal findings, citing other studies. These mainly media-based reports put the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at about 15,000 - although the basis for such an endorsement is unclear, since neither the US nor the UK admits to collecting data on Iraqi civilian casualties.
I've noticed the Right Wingers here are refuting this finding.
But this report is completely above board and cannot be refuted. It has not been refuted yet. Certainly it cannot be refuted by the goofs in this forum. Even today someone told me I was a liar because I mentioned 100000 dead Iraq women and children.
Well, if even this rock solid report from one of the medical worlds most respected sources isn't good enough for others here I can only think someone is lieing... someone is trying to lie very hard.
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Jasonnz, your capacity to rationalize the facts never cease to amaze me.
I looked at the table. I did my own stats on violent death, discounting the non-violent death toll and its "baseline" subtraction. No matter how you twist the statistics, it comes out to a f*ck of a lot of deaths... a lot more than had to pass through the filter of FIRST being reported in the Western Press and THEN needing a certificate of death. You would rather pick an obviously low-ball number? Fine. What you choose to tell yourself doesn't change reality, and the Iraqis certainly know which end is up even if you don't. But don't go around wondering why they don't see us as "liberators" and asking yourself "Why do they hate us so much?"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Just to interject...
But this report is completely above board and cannot be refuted. It has not been refuted yet. Certainly it cannot be refuted by the goofs in this forum. Even today someone told me I was a liar because I mentioned 100000 dead Iraq women and children.
I asked you to provide cites from the Lancet article to support your '100,000 women and children killed by US bombing' claim. Well?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
Just to interject...
But this report is completely above board and cannot be refuted. It has not been refuted yet. Certainly it cannot be refuted by the goofs in this forum. Even today someone told me I was a liar because I mentioned 100000 dead Iraq women and children.
I asked you to provide cites from the Lancet article to support your '100,000 women and children killed by US bombing' claim. Well?
Gotta say... a website run by what are effectively bloggers, though bloggers with research cred, can't really compare to a national insitution like the Lancet. Sure, the Lancet is estimating but that doesn't invalidate the report any more than any other scientific method.
Remember, the dead don't report thier death. The Lancet's method was the only way to get an accurate number of deaths and I applaud the people on the ground who risked thier lives to provide accurate results for The Lancet.
I've included a recent article by iraqbodycount.net that talks about the Lancet findings. Give it a read.
Lancet Article (which is mysteriously down !?!?!)
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9446/early_online_publicati
on
IRAQ BODY COUNT Press Releases
PR10: Monday 7th November 2004
IBC response to the Lancet study estimating "100,000" Iraqi deaths
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/
Some people have asked us why we have not increased our count to 100,000 in the light of the multiple media reports of the recent Lancet study [link] which claims this as a probable and conservative estimate of Iraqi casualties.
Iraq Body Count does not include casualty estimates or projections in its database. It only includes individual or cumulative deaths as directly reported by the media or tallied by official bodies (for instance, by hospitals, morgues and, in a few cases so far, NGOs), and subsequently reported in the media. In other words, each entry in the Iraq Body Count data base represents deaths which have actually been recorded by appropriate witnesses - not "possible" or even "probable" deaths.
The Lancet study's headline figure of "100,000" excess deaths is a probabilistic projection from a small number of reported deaths - most of them from aerial weaponry - in a sample of 988 households to the entire Iraqi population. Only those actual, war-related deaths could be included in our count. Because the researchers did not ask relatives whether the male deaths were military or civilian the civilian proportion in the sample is unknown (despite the Lancet website's front-page headline "100,000 excess civilian deaths after Iraq invasion", [link] the authors clearly state that "many" of the dead in their sample may have been combatants [P.7]). Iraq Body Count only includes reports where there are feasible methods of distinguishing military from civilian deaths (most of the uncertainty that remains in our own count - the difference between our reported Minimum and Maximum - arises from this issue). Our count is purely a civilian count.
One frequently cited misapprehension is that IBC "only can count deaths where journalists are present."[link] This is incorrect, and appears to arise from unfamiliarity with the variety of sources which the media may report and IBC has used. These sources include hospital and morgue officials giving totals for specific incidents or time periods, totals which in turn have sometimes been integrated into overall tolls of deaths and injuries for entire regions of Iraq as collated by central agencies such as the Iraqi Health Ministry (see KRT 25th September 2004 [link]); these are all carefully separated from more "direct" as well as duplicate media reporting before being added to IBC's database. The Lancet's survey data was itself gathered without journalists being present, and yet is widely reported in the press. Were the Lancet study a count and not a projection, it too could after appropriate analysis become part of the IBC database.
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Ghoul.
You can quote the Lancet study if you want. I have no problem with that. It is one of many estimates of casualties. The problem I have is when people categorize it as "100,000 civilians" or "100,000 women and children". As IBC's article states:
Quote:
(despite the Lancet website's front-page headline "100,000 excess civilian deaths after Iraq invasion", the authors clearly state that "many" of the dead in their sample may have been combatants [P.7]).
I just don't want you to be accused of 'spinning' the truth.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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You all do realise that nothing you say to anyone on an internet venue like this ever sways anyone with a brain?
You are all wasting your breath and pissing each other off because you just KNOW your right... because all your sources are "direct from the horse's mouth" when, in reality, none of you actually have real sources with perfect facts.
You have your liberal/democrat or your conservative/republican propaganda and you get all pissy over it. And when the other side has exact opposite numbers(so opposite it's impossible the other can be right) no one listens!
You all need to realise that YOU ARE ALL WRONG.
NONE OF YOUR SOURCES ARE CORRECT.
The Democrats and Republicans like to keep the populace busy fighting itself so that they can get away with almost anything they want.
Don't be a puppet of the government any longer.
Think for yourselves. Don't listen to what CBS/CNN/ABC/FOX/MSNBC/NBC/BBC/(etcetera) say. They want ratings and they will LIE to get them. You want real numbers? Talk to 2 or more people that actually were in Iraq in the same general area but not in the same platoon/squad or hospital. And do this for several different areas of Iraq.
Then you'll have an idea what it's like.
That ain't no shepard...
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^^^ great post!
I totally agree, I've been advocating my opinion over links but these trolls always love to start little "link pissing matches"... it fills up a thread they don't like. They do it every time I post any thread. They never start thier own threads, just troll my threads.
It's gotten to be completely boring. They have hacked my email account, lied about what I said and posted, inserted giant pictures in my threads, it goes on and on.
Today, I was accused of being a troll.
I can't tell you what little cock sucking pussies these guys are. They consistantly attack people instead of the opinion, they avoid opinions with all thier might. I believe that's called fascism.
This BBS is the most disgusting example of ignorant trolls I've ever seen in all my 10 years online. To tell you the truth, I often point this site out to friends who are amazed at the ignorance and childishness. It's almost as bad as CrossFire on CNN!
It's a terrific example of American discourse. 
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Taken from the Lancet study:
Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in ... Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1•5-fold (1•1–2•3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98 000 more deaths than expected (8000–194 000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included.
Violent deaths were widespread, reported in 15 of 33 clusters, and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children (and one old man, for a total of 54% non-combatant deaths - SEE BELOW Rue).
In the absence of any surveys, however, they have relied on Ministry of Health records. ... but because only a third of all deaths happen in hospitals, these data might not accurately represent trends. No surveys or census-based estimates of crude mortality have been undertaken in Iraq in more than a decade ...
When deaths occurred, the date, cause, and circumstances of violent deaths were recorded. When violent deaths were attributed to a faction in the conflict or to criminal forces, no further investigation into the death was made to respect the privacy of the family and for the safety of the interviewers.
Many of the Iraqis reportedly killed by US forces could have been combatants. * 28 of 61 killings (46%) attributed to US forces involved men age 15–60 years, 28 (46%) were children younger than 15 years, four (7%) were
women, and one was an elderly man. (54% were clearly non-combatants Rue) It is not clear if the greater number of male deaths was attributable to legitimate targeting ... or if this was because men are more often in public... For example, seven of 12 (58%) vehicle accident related fatalities involved men between 15 and 60 years of age.
* For this to be true, you have to accept the US concept that ANY male between 15 and 60, armed or not, IS a combatant.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
This BBS is the most disgusting example of ignorant trolls I've ever seen in all my 10 years online. To tell you the truth, I often point this site out to friends who are amazed at the ignorance and childishness. It's almost as bad as CrossFire on CNN!
It's a terrific example of American discourse.
Hey, Ghoulman, what's going on over there? When did this happen? I've tried a lot of BBS's and I keep coming back to li'l old FFF 'cause the vast majority of people who post here, post regularly and respectfully. I can't find that anywhere else. The right-leaning posters here are by far the most articulate and consistently engaging right-leaning people I have ever encountered. What I like about you Ghoulman is that you don't argue your points. You don't get caught up in minutia. You keep your eye on the big picture. You simply state what you know to be true and stick to it.
There's an ill wind of relativism out there today. The fascist spirit wants everyone to believe that there is no way of knowing the truth, that all communication is propaganda. If that spirit were to prevail, then history would be irrelevant and George Orwell's prophecy would come true. Ghoulman, don't let the bastards grind you down. And don't take too much of the irrelevant flack you get here seriously.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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DANG YOU HKCavalier!
Once again my plans to become supreme ruler of the world by undermining all governments everywhere are foiled in thier infancy by other smart people!
STOP HELPING THEM.
WHEN I RULE, THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER(cause it won't remember what it was like before).
really... I promise...
*evil grin*
you can trust me...
That ain't no shepard...
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