About That 600,000 Iraq Death Count…
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The World, WarA blogger from Iraq, who’s been sharing her voice since 2003, gives us some perspective on the controversial Lancet study:
For American politicians and military personnel, playing dumb and talking about numbers of bodies in morgues and official statistics, etc, seems to be the latest tactic. But as any Iraqi knows, not every death is being reported… So far, the only Iraqis I know pretending this [600,000] number is outrageous are either out-of-touch Iraqis abroad who supported the war, or Iraqis inside of the country who are directly benefiting from the occupation ($) and likely living in the Green Zone.The chaos and lack of proper facilities is resulting in people being buried without a trip to the morgue or the hospital. During American military attacks on cities like Samarra and Fallujah, victims were buried in their gardens or in mass graves in football fields. Or has that been forgotten already?
And still more…
There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.Let’s pretend the 600,000+ number is all wrong and that the minimum is the correct number: nearly 400,000. Is that better? Prior to the war, the Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet, 300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al.
That last paragraph is simply devestating and speaks to the tragic irony we create when we fight pre-emptive wars for “peace.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 and is filed under The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 19th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Justin, thank you.
This is not the first time that the Lancet has published a statistics based death count for Iraq. They did the same process back about 2 years if I remember.
The basis as I understand it is that used for death counts in famine and disease epidemics in remote and poor regions. It is a reasonably sound and proven statistical approach from that point of view, but not when the politics get in the way.
And thank you too. I drop in to Riverbend at least once a week, but the last time was about 2 weeks back. I was getting most concerned about her apparent absence. Her last post was July 30, and with the number of other moderate Iraq bloggers who stopped publishing around then through to mid August, I was worried about what was going on.
October 19th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Is there anyway I can get her stop “sharing her voice”? It is a whiny, defeatist, NAG voice. We should tape her voice and share it for interrogation purposes - now that’s the definition of torture.
October 20th, 2006 at 1:40 am
DosPeros,
Since she lives in Baghdad, odds are fair she’ll be killed by “accident”–the odds go way up if anybody there traces out who she is in RL. Would stopping her from “sharing her voiceâ€Â? that way suit you?
October 20th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Lets take a look at what the gem has had to say:
8-30-2003
Well, with two brother is the U.S. military and a bunch of friends risking their lives over there, let me give a big FUCK YOU to Riverbend.
It is Iraqis like her that tell me we should pack our bags today and send everyone home in 48 hours. Somehow I think Riverbend would find a reason to go back to school in the UK in that event.
October 20th, 2006 at 11:42 am
And here we see why we’re hailed as liberators…
October 20th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
What makes you think she lives in Baghdad? Maybe she lives in Waziristan or Dearborn. How can we know?
October 20th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
It fascinates me how easily Americans fall for anti-American propaganda. Are you sure you-all ain’t Liberal Party hacks blogging from Ottawa?
October 20th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Funny, it fascinates me how easily Americans fall for American propaganda.
October 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 am
Sounds about right to me…maybe slightly exaggerated but far more accurate than the whitewashed totals our government sells to the conservative media.
October 22nd, 2006 at 11:46 pm
“What makes you think she lives in Baghdad? Maybe she lives in Waziristan or Dearborn. How can we know?”
Tin-foil hat time again… the aliens are back!
November 17th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
I keep seeing the people on this blog talking about “Americans” and “Iraqis”. The last time I checked, the world was round, and we are all PEOPLE… The ones who are creating all this hatred between nations are the very people who stand to benefit from our separation. Why aren’t they out on the front lines? And why are we still bickering?