Reporting this week in the online edition of The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, the researchers estimated that 654,000 more Iraqis died of various causes after the invasion than would have died in a comparable period before.
The Lancet, of course, is the same journal that published a similarly flawed study on the eve of the last presidential election in a transparent attempt to influence the outcome (to no avail, fortunately). That study claimed that more than 100,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the invasion.
It's bad enough that a once reputable journal would publish methodologically flawed studies as if they were methodologically sound. Publishing politically motivated, methodologically flawed studies is even worse. And the fact that it would habitually do so just before elections are held in America in an effort to ensure that Democrats win is indicative of a deep pathology on the part of the journal editors. They'd be much better off publishing a medical inquiry into Bush Derangement Syndrome. Lancet is, after all, a medical journal.
The Lancet has an even longer history of publishing inflated casualty claims from Iraq. Back when Saddam was in power, liberal outlets (including the Lancet) were also doing body counts. In an article in the Nation entitled "A hard look at sanctions in Iraq," we have this:
The grim question of how many people have died in Iraq has sparked heated debate over the years. The controversy dates from 1995, when researchers with a Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) study in Iraq wrote to The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Society, asserting that sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children.
I think this old figure might explain the new study. In fact, I can just hear the conversation that preceded it:
Lancet: Team, someone just reminded me that we once said that sanctions killed 567,000 Iraqi children. If we don't act fast, someone might credit George Bush with saving that many children now that child mortality rates in Iraq have come way down.
"Researcher:" That would be horrible! Fear not, I'm on it. Soon, I'll have a new "study" for you that beats that old figure. In fact, I guarantee that it will come in well above 600,000.
["study" conducted here]
Lancet: Whew! We did it. Now we can say that "research proves that George Bush killed more Iraqis than he saved." Thank God we got this vital information before Americans go to the polls.
10 comments:
So the Iraqi physicians and the epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health who conducted this study are all victims of Bush derangement syndrome? It seems to me that the only reliable way to determine the death toll in the chaos of Iraq is by statistical sampling. Why haven't you offered any refutation of the scientific approach used in the study? Who else has done a simliar study and come up with different numbers?
You are not the slightest bit concerned by the obvious attempt to manipulate the US election (again)? To you, it's reasonable to suppose that these are nothing more than objective scientists in search of the truth and that, by random chance, they keep releasing their wild claims just before we hold elections?
Go here to read just one of many analyses of their last attempt at this.
As you know from reading this blog, I am constantly searching for credible casualty reports from Iraq. Lancet is not one of the places to look.
In all fairness, research standards are pretty low in epidemiology and in the social sciences in general. A lot of factions trade shabby statistics either with false assurances that they have proven something, or with the mediocre excuse that they can't do any better. So I don't particularly believe this figure from the Lancet.
But I also don't disbelieve it. As TD Larkin said, these Lancet authors are the only ones who are at least trying to answer the question. The only way to find out how many Iraqis are being murdered in the anarchy of Iraq is with census estimates, and no group other than the Lancet is trying. It's a shame, because it's an important question. It wouldn't be all that expensive to do a survey that meets the standards of the US Census Bureau. It would be insignificantly cheap compared to the war itself.
As for Engram's question, I am quite concerned that there has not been nearly enough manipulation of US elections by truth-bearers. Too many voters are in the dark about the most basic factual questions; such as, for example, how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. Some of the world's worst elections amount to church rituals in which competing priests debate each other. I can see why they wouldn't want outside influence, but they sure as hell ought to have it!
I can also say, Engram, that you have a way of flying off the handle in response to any criticism of Bush that you perceive as unfair. THEY'RE TRYING TO MANIPULATE THE ELECTION, you say. You well know that all kinds of bogus studies get published in journals. If you really see it as a conspiracy to steal elections from American Republicans, then I would say that there are two prevalent types of "Bush Derangement Syndrome", and you've got one of them!
Except the authors of the study agree with me that the timing of their first study was designed to influence the presidential election (i.e., they acknowledged it long ago). Yet you think it's a sign that I'm suffering from a syndrome because I believe them? The timing is obviously politically motivated, and the authors themselves admit it, but you refuse to believe it.
That's a medical journal, not a political journal. You should not applaud their political antics just because they seek to damage the reputation of a president you happen not to like.
Except the authors of the study agree with me that the timing of their first study was designed to influence the presidential election (i.e., they acknowledged it long ago).
I have no opinion on that one way or the other until I know what they actually said.
Yet you think it's a sign that I'm suffering from a syndrome because I believe them?
Not so much that as that you consider it out of bounds to try to inform an election. That's part of the point of free speech, to inform the voters. Or to try to misinform them! It's the responsibility of the voters to sort through all information short of outright fraud. It might count as fraud if the study were paid for by the DNC, but I doubt anything of the sort. The authors are at worst merely wrong. To call it election fraud -- to have that come from a tenured scientist -- is indeed a form of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Besides, I don't know that the authors are wrong. When I skimmed the study today, it struck me that they were a lot more careful than a lot of estimates of deaths due to the bad guys. If they had done exactly the same study in North Korea no one would even have blinked, in fact a lot of the erstwhile critics would have praised it as slam-dunk proof. Now, that does not mean that it is really the truth. But maybe I was a little uncharitable in saying that epidemiology has low standards. Sometimes the standards are not so bad.
If I was a little uncharitable, Bush was completely uncharitable in response to this study; he was also full of !@#$. He said that the number just wasn't credible. But when a reporter asked him, okay, what is a credible number, he refused to give one. If a guy is 100% certain that your numbers is wrong, but refuses to give you his number or even a range of numbers, that means that he isn't interested in the truth.
Both studies from the Lancet made a plea for governments, or NGOs, to make authoritative surveys of deaths in Iraq. They said openly, our numbers are just an estimate, we would like to see the real truth. Bush responds to that by saying, their numbers are wrong, and they can go fly a kite with the question.
That's a medical journal, not a political journal.
Deaths due to warfare or anarchy are a perfectly valid medical question. Just because it is a medical journal, that does not mean that it stay away from political questions. It shouldn't stay away by any means, provided that those questions have serious medical content.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that democracy can go bad by becoming a church with priests who debate each other. Politicians have in the past dismissed the valid work of physicists, biologists, chemists, economists, you name it, with the accusation that they carry political agendas. Actually scientists are perfectly entitled to carry political agendas. The point is that the scientific debate should rise above the possible partisanship of its individual voices.
In other words, if you think that the Lancet study is wrong, you should do a better study yourself! If you want to time its release for the next election cycle, go right ahead!
By the way, the study is here, and I invite you to critique it point by point:
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
Touche jim harris! Engram clearly has a version of Bush derangement syndrome where he unequivocally believes everything the man says no matter how preposterous.
The real question you should be asking Engram is why our own government doesn't tell us what the real numbers are? They don't even provide accurate counts of our own dead and wounded. These have to be tallied by outside groups (like Iraq Body Count and the icasualties site).
Iraq Body Count has an average of 36 deaths per day, yet we often hear reports of 100 a day. Just today another 60 bodies were discovered. This means the Iraq body count is probably off by a factor of 2 or 3 since many deaths likely go unreported. It's likely that many bodies are being dumped or buried in places where they won't be found. It's safe to say that the only growth industries in Iraq these days are gravedigging and casket manufacturing.
Just because some want to deny the carnage in Iraq doesn't mean it isn't happening. As citizens it's our obligation to force our government to recognize the reality of the situation and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
As I've said before, what is Bush's plan? Let's hear it! He should publish his plan on resolving Iraq's civil war and the Republicans should all run on it. Let's have a clear choice this November. How many years and how many more US dead will it take Mr. President to finish off this misadventure?
Come on now silly people, run the numbers for yourself.
600,000 Iraqi's killed over 3.5 years comes out to the outlandish total of 469 Iraqi's being killed each and every day for those 3.5 years. Where is the proof that in one month at least 14,000 Iraqi's have died? Where are all the bodies being buried?
The Lancet study is most probably flawed because the people responding to the questions are guilty of gross exaggeration.
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跟屁蟲! 我想妳的英文程度應該很差吧!
說起這位明英宗朱祁鎮 真是好有一比:在北京高峰時酒店經紀段開車:生不完的氣。
先說年號問題，明朝皇帝在位時間再長， 酒店兼差年號也只有一個，惟獨他特殊，在位總共不過十五年，年號卻有兩個，前一個叫正統，後一個叫天順。倒不是因為他非要搞特權，兩個年號之間， 禮服店是由一大堆可氣的事串起來的。
先說正統朝，差不多是地球酒店打工人都知道的，這麼多的忠良幹才他不信任，偏寵信一個教書先生出身的太監王振， 一幹閹党把國家禍害得烏煙瘴氣。後來瓦剌犯邊，忠臣良將的苦勸不聽，偏聽死太監攛掇，非要御駕親徵， 合法酒店經紀帶著幾十萬人牛氣哄哄出了長城，按說既然親徵你就好好 打啊，他不，走到半道又後悔了，連敵人影 酒店工作都沒見著就撤兵，撤兵麼撤得快點啊，跑還沒跑成，讓人家圍在土木堡包了餃子，稀裏糊塗一場 酒店上班混戰，幾十萬大軍全死 光，連本人也當了俘虜。丟人到如此，實在可氣。
英宗被抓到蒙古高原上去啃生羊肉了， 酒店兼職爛賬總要有人收拾。皇帝讓人綁了，敵人打到家門口了，總不成學宋朝 來個衣冠南渡吧！還好喝酒 有他親弟弟給他收拾，弟弟朱祁鈺繼承帝位，改年號為景泰，可氣的正統朝總算結束了。景泰帝信用 酒店PT良臣于謙，成功組織北京保衛戰打垮敵 人，再運用外交壓力，逼得酒店喝酒 瓦剌把英宗放回來當太上皇，總算不用學宋徽宗那樣客死他鄉。折騰半天，祖宗江山差點丟了不說 禮服酒店，皇位也折騰沒了。這樣的鬧劇，怪不 得別人。
雖是傻事敗事一籮筐，但傻人總算有傻福，雖說皇位沒了， 台北酒店經紀
命還是保住了，回來舒舒服服過太上皇的日子倒也 不交際應酬 錯，可他不消停，拉幫結派培植私人勢力，幾年後趁著弟弟病重搞了場“奪門之變”。奪粉味 回了皇位不說，上臺第一件事就是殺掉了功臣于謙。並把當初北京保衛戰 的功臣們來了個大清洗，掌握朝政大權的都是徐有貞、石亨、曹吉祥等一幫姦險小人。雖然過了沒幾年，這幾個人也被明英宗清算，下獄的下獄（石亨），充軍的充 軍（徐有貞） 寒假打工，被殺的被殺（曹吉祥），可明朝的政治氣象，還是一片烏煙瘴氣。
皇位奪回來了，自然就要改年號。於是，明英宗 兼差改年號為天順。從正統年到天順年，打敗仗，殺忠良，寵小人，亂國家，儘是他辦的敗事，每每讀史到此，不知有多少人氣得直哆嗦。
可正統朝的事畢竟年頭遠了，真正給後 暑假打工世攢下麻煩的，是天順朝。
“天順”麼，按字面意思，自然有風調雨順的意思。 打工從這個意義上說，“天順”朝時代的明朝，運氣還真不 壞，別的且不說，單說綁過明英宗票的瓦剌，那在土木堡創下擊敗明朝幾十萬大軍，活捉明朝皇帝偉業的瓦剌首領也先，沒死在大對頭明朝手裏，倒在內戰中被一刀 砍死。到了天順朝時期，瓦剌又和鄰居韃靼打個不停，因此，雖然少了良將於謙，但終天順一朝的邊 酒店境形勢，還算是太平無事。
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