NationStates Jolt Archive

Just got this email:


At Least 100,000 Dead in Iraq
U.S. War is a Blood Bath for the Iraqi People
Pledge to Take Action to End the War (http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=wMUn1EQJV3O72suC2Mm5YQ..)

Dear VoteNoWar Member,

In a medical study being published today, scientists have concluded that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqis, "and may be much higher." It further revealed that most of the 100,000 Iraqis who died were killed in violent deaths, primarily carried out by U.S. forces' airstrikes. "Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," according to the study. The study was designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad (The Lancet, October 29, 2004).

The population of Iraq is approximately 25 million people. Were this slaughter carried out on an equivalent scale in the United States, it would be comparable to a death toll of one million people. Even the youngest and most vulnerable have not been spared: as a consequence of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq, infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 U.N.T.S. 277, executed in 1948, and ratified by the United States, and which carries the binding force of the law of nations, prohibits genocide or complicity in genocide. See, also, 18 U.S.C. 1091.
"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."

This is a criminal war just as the Vietnam war was a criminal war. It isn't enough to advocate that replacing Bush with Kerry should be the goal of anti-war advocates. The Pentagon is preparing to rain down their favored "shock and awe" violence on the devastated people of Fallujah who have already been subject to terrorizing bombing raids and the killings of entire families night after night for months. By demanding the unconditional withdrawal from Iraq we are sending a message to the Iraq people that we respect their right to determine their own destiny and we send a message to the U.S. soldiers that their lives and dignity are too important to be used in the commission of war crimes or to serve as cannon fodder in a war that only benefits the corporate and banking elite.

Bush and Kerry have pledged to continue this violent occupation in order to "win" in Iraq. The people of Iraq are desperately trying to regain their sovereignty and right to determine their own futures without outside intervention. While some feel that the "final stretch" is in these next few days culminating at the polls, for the people of Iraq and all those around the world who stand in solidarity with them, the "final stretch" is from now until the U.S. troops and all occupation forces are removed from that sovereign land.

We must deepen the fight in the United States to bring this war to an end unconditionally. It is completely bogus to insist the intervention must continue based on some humanitarian argument that since U.S. intervention wrought so much devastation, the U.S. must now stay the course in order to prevent "civil war," "chaos," or "a blood bath." These were the same arguments that were used to justify the prolongation of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The only thing that happened when the U.S. finally left Vietnam was that the real blood bath ended. That's why thousands of people are planning to take action starting on November 3 and culminating in a mass action all along the route of the Inaugural parade on January 20 in Washington, DC.

Only the anti-war movement will end the criminal war in Iraq. We urgently need your support to carry out these activities to stop the blood bath in Iraq. Please make a contribution now online through the secure server by clicking here.

Anti-war activists who are out in the streets, including before the election fighting against racist disenfranchisement as well as after the election, are prominently displaying the most important anti-war message of our time: Bring the Troops Home Now! on T-shirts, stickers and signs -- which you can get at the VoteNoWar Resource Center, along with ANSWER's beautiful own "End All Occupations" shirt by clicking here. (See below for images.)

Pledge now to support the January 20 demonstration against the war - no matter who is elected. Click here to endorse and say Bring the Troops Home Now!

-- All of Us at VoteNoWar.org

Another article about this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3962969.stm


Iraq death toll 'soared post-war'

Poor planning, air strikes by coalition forces and a "climate of violence" have led to more than 100,000 extra deaths in Iraq, scientists say.

A study published by the Lancet claims the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion.

It condemns the coalition's planning on public health as "grievously in error".

The Lancet admits the research is based on a small sample - under 1,000 homes - but says the findings are "convincing".

Scientists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US city of Baltimore gathered data on births and deaths since January 2002 from 33 clusters of 30 households each across Iraq.

They found the relative risk of death was one-and-a-half times higher for Iraqi civilians after the 2003 invasion than in the preceding 15 months.

That figure jumps to two-and-a-half times higher if data from Falluja - the scene of repeated heavy fighting - is included.

Before the invasion, most people died as a result of heart attack, stroke and chronic illness, the report says, whereas after the invasion, "violence was the primary cause of death."

Violent deaths were mainly attributed to coalition forces - and most individuals reportedly killed were women and children.

Dr Les Roberts, who led the study, said: "Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most of the violent deaths."

He said his team's work proved it was possible to compile data on public health "even during periods of extreme violence".

The sample included randomly selected households in Baghdad, Basra, Arbil, Najaf and Karbala, as well as Falluja.

Lancet editor Richard Horton said: "With the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public health perspective, it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error."

He went on: "Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths not fewer. This political and military failure continues to cause scores of casualties among non-combatants."

He urges the coalition forces to rethink their strategy to "prevent further unnecessary human casualties".

"For the sake of a country in crisis and for a people under daily threat of violence, the evidence we publish today must change heads as well as pierce hearts," he said.

Brought to you by the same people who declared 377 tons of RDX were missing in Iraq (More like 3). ;)

wow thats bad
the lancet doesnt accept crap science. it has a very good chance of being absolutely true.

democracy through invasion

wonderful concept

Brought to you by the same people who declared 377 tons of RDX were missing in Iraq (More like 3). ;)

Your info is a day old. Videotape of the explosives taken by a local ABC affiliate in Minneapolis from an embedded reporter from April 18th has been uncovered. It shows bunkers still with seals on them, and soldiers looking over boxes and boxes of explosives.

I think the most interesting part is
"A study published by the Lancet claims the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion."
Will this finally shut some loud mouths. They are not safer (nor better) than before.

I get it. We leave, abandon the country to the Islamist pigs that run Saudi Arabia, the PLO and so forth, and get another nation like Saudi Arabia.

Where women have NO rights. Where women are killed for being raped, killed for having non-arab male friends (even non-romantic ones), killed for being in the same room as a man with no chaperone, etc. Where there are not even the sham elections Saddam held, no elections at all. Where the goal is to hold all progress to it's zenith, 1300 AD. Yeah, great plan.

Try reading some Iraqi comments on this, they hate the occupation, but most realize that the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Then read this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3645551.stm) , where a woman was beaten nearly to death for the sin of answering the phone. Her husband was not charged for beating her, that is fine in Islamofacist nations. He was charged for beating her a bit too much.

I get it. We leave, abandon the country to the Islamist pigs that run Saudi Arabia, the PLO and so forth, and get another nation like Saudi Arabia.

Where women have NO rights. Where women are killed for being raped, killed for having non-arab male friends (even non-romantic ones), killed for being in the same room as a man with no chaperone, etc. Where there are not even the sham elections Saddam held, no elections at all. Where the goal is to hold all progress to it's zenith, 1300 AD. Yeah, great plan.

Try reading some Iraqi comments on this, they hate the occupation, but most realize that the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Then read this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3645551.stm) , where a woman was beaten nearly to death for the sin of answering the phone. Her husband was not charged for beating her, that is fine in Islamofacist nations. He was charged for beating her a bit too much.
And your point is?
Nobody has (yet, in this thread) said that they should leave now. They just shouldn't be there in the first place.

And your point is?
Nobody has (yet, in this thread) said that they should leave now. They just shouldn't be there in the first place.

I thought liberals were supposed to focus on the future and not worry about the past.

Almost everyone has realized the war may have been a mistake. Maybe people should start thinking about how to fix the situation instead of complaining about it.

I thought liberals were supposed to focus on the future and not worry about the past.

Almost everyone has realized the war may have been a mistake. Maybe people should start thinking about how to fix the situation instead of complaining about it.
Well. first of all American soldiers should change their attitude and behaviour in areas which are not totally hostile. Learn from the Brits.

I get it. We leave, abandon the country to the Islamist pigs that run Saudi Arabia, the PLO and so forth, and get another nation like Saudi Arabia.

Where women have NO rights. Where women are killed for being raped, killed for having non-arab male friends (even non-romantic ones), killed for being in the same room as a man with no chaperone, etc. Where there are not even the sham elections Saddam held, no elections at all. Where the goal is to hold all progress to it's zenith, 1300 AD. Yeah, great plan.

Try reading some Iraqi comments on this, they hate the occupation, but most realize that the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Then read this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3645551.stm) , where a woman was beaten nearly to death for the sin of answering the phone. Her husband was not charged for beating her, that is fine in Islamofacist nations. He was charged for beating her a bit too much.
Quite right. The middle east is a shithole for women.

Ought we to invade every theocratic country and liberate them all?

And your point is?
Nobody has (yet, in this thread) said that they should leave now. They just shouldn't be there in the first place.

We must deepen the fight in the United States to bring this war to an end unconditionally. It is completely bogus to insist the intervention must continue based on some humanitarian argument that since U.S. intervention wrought so much devastation, the U.S. must now stay the course in order to prevent "civil war," "chaos," or "a blood bath."

Um, what? Yes, they are calling for withdrawl now, not later.

I also find thir pimping of the front ANSWER interesting. ANSWER's funding traces back to several pro-Communist organizations, all of whom oppose the concept of democracy, freedom (they cheered the ChiComs actions in Tien. Square...) and so on. Respectful bunch that.

Um, what? Yes, they are calling for withdrawl now, not later.

I also find thir pimping of the front ANSWER interesting. ANSWER's funding traces back to several pro-Communist organizations, all of whom oppose the concept of democracy, freedom (they cheered the ChiComs actions in Tien. Square...) and so on. Respectful bunch that.
Nobody here said that.
And I don't care about ANSWER, it's not the point here. I prefer the BBC article as it's more neutral but still says the same things.

just because its on the internet doesn't make something true...

just because someone asserts something, like for example "there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" or "the US is committing war crimes in Iraq" doesn't make it true...

what are the source of those statistics, who did the research, what agenda did the organization that published the statistics have...

before making an informed decision on something, you need that kind of information

I am willing to bet that average life expectency in Iraq has dropped dramatically since sanctions were placed on Iraq in 1990... but I don't KNOW that, I can only make assumptions based on the effects of a poorer economy, less access to imported medicines and food, priorities being given to scare commidities based on political affeliation and the other factors.

I can also make some guesses as to blame... the basic questions are this

Would those sanctions have occured if Saddam hadn't invaded Kuwait.

Would Kuwait have been invaded if Saddam had been warned point blank not to

Did Saddam have a history of invading nations for territorial gain

Would Saddam have been in deep debt if he had not invaded Iran in 1979

and these are but the starting point of questions to a nation that has a modern history dating back only to 1918 (prior to that was ruled by the Turks for over 1000 years except for a couple of nasty invasions by the Mongols and Timurlame)

How many of those killed were killed by US and Allied forces, and how many were killed by guerillas and terrorists?

just because its on the internet doesn't make something true...

just because someone asserts something, like for example "there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" or "the US is committing war crimes in Iraq" doesn't make it true...

what are the source of those statistics, who did the research, what agenda did the organization that published the statistics have...

before making an informed decision on something, you need that kind of information


Of course you canät trust everything you read. This was also in morning news.
-A study published by the Lancet
-The Lancet admits the research is based on a small sample - under 1,000 homes - but says the findings are "convincing".
-Scientists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US city of Baltimore gathered data on births and deaths since January 2002 from 33 clusters of 30 households each across Iraq.
-Dr Les Roberts, who led the study,

It's all there, what else you want?

How many of those killed were killed by US and Allied forces, and how many were killed by guerillas and terrorists?

A sort-of-answer to that from the IraqBodyCount.net website... I know, not a credible source, but still. If you take their data for specific post-war incidents and try to assign blame, the US/allied-blame and all unknown-blame or dubious incidents total is ~500, and the terorist/insurgent total is ~2000. That seems about right to me.

more violent deaths in a war zone... imagine that...

Guerilla warfare is very hard on civilians, always has been. It only succeeds rarely as well (only a couple of examples of success I can think of.... China 1949, Nicaruaga 1978, Cuba 1960)..North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam with conventional forces so it doesn't count, and the Soviet Afghan adventure ended because the Soviet Union went broke for other reasons.

So that may be a reasonable estimate.... how many killed by guerillas, how many killed by occupation forces is the relevent question. Along with how long it will go on, and how much worse would it be if the US left. And how many would have died under the previous regime due to violence?

Of course you canät trust everything you read. This was also in morning news.
-A study published by the Lancet
-The Lancet admits the research is based on a small sample - under 1,000 homes - but says the findings are "convincing".
-Scientists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US city of Baltimore gathered data on births and deaths since January 2002 from 33 clusters of 30 households each across Iraq.
-Dr Les Roberts, who led the study,

It's all there, what else you want?

I think the fact that it is a census and based off 1000 homes makes the number questionable. Anyone who has taken a statistics class would find this research questionable. A poll taker can get any number they want by choosing where they poll and how many people are polled.

I think the fact that it is a census and based off 1000 homes makes the number questionable. Anyone who has taken a statistics class would find this research questionable. A poll taker can get any number they want by choosing where they poll and how many people are polled.
They do admit it. But just as they put it, it is "convincing".

They do admit it. But just as they put it, it is "convincing".

I would to if I wanted to prove a point.

This research may be true but I remain skeptical.

The Lancet study itself is here (you have to register for free):

http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9445/full/llan.364.9445.early_online_publication.31137.1

I am reading it and will have more comments soon, but let me just say that the claim is, on the face of it, incredible. They are suggesting that the death rate in the country essentially doubled. There have been other surveys of morgues and hospitals that give us a number of maybe 8-10,000 violent deaths, post-occupation - which would include street crime and terrorist attacks, of course.

A sample size of 1000 is much too small to support a claim like that, because just one IED in the wrong place can double the observed death rate.

If there were 100,000 extra deaths due to violence, well, where are the bodies?

If there were 100,000 extra deaths due to violence, well, where are the bodies?

The disintegrated from all the nuclear blasts, duh!

[/sarcasm]

This is the pdf of the study...

http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art10342web.pdf

*yawn*

Don't you all know this? If the Redskins win their last home game this Sunday, the Incumbent wins the election. If the 'skins lose, then the Incumbent loses. What anyone wants matters not.

The Presidential election hinges on the football game this weekend. Go Redskins!

(oh, and by the way, if the Redskins win, it's a conspiracy and the game was thrown by Greenbay so the Republicans can stay in power... in case you haven't heard that part either)

Okay, I read it. I'm not impressed.

First, they tried to survey Falluja, which probably is a bad data point (something which they discuss). So let's exclude Falluja for now.

The sample is of ~7500 residents. There are 21 recorded violent deaths over the 18 months after the invasion: 4 children, 13 men, 2 women, and 2 elderly people. Of these, 9 are due to the coalition military, 7 are criminal murders, 2 terrorist attacks, 2 unknown and 1 by the former regime. Of the ones due to the coalition military, 2 are known accidents.

Analysis:

Obviously the sample size is too small, since we are basing all this reasoning on only a handful of violent deaths, and even smaller handful that are caused by the coalition military. A sample ten times larger (and more geographically dispersed, as opposed to clustered like this one) might give a marginally reliable result.

The geographic distribution of the data is very suspect. A full geographical breakdown by cause and province is not provided, only overall mortality (all causes) by province. Some of the more peaceful provinces (Irbil, Basra, Al Muthanna) were not sampled at all. Some of the provinces which saw heavy fighting show no change in the mortality rate (Ninawa, Karbala) while other provinces which saw little fighting show large increases (Wasit, Missan), which casts doubt on the reliability of the data. One province (Al Sulaymaniya) shows a large drop.

The sex ratio suggests that the excess men and possibly some of the under-15 children were combatants. The mortality for men would be higher in any case because they travel more and engage in more dangerous activities. If we assume the risk from all non-combat-related causes to be twice higher for males, we can calculate there were approximately 6 combatant men and 1 combatant child under 15. This would put the countrywide total of combatants killed at 25,000 - not an unreasonable number, considering the number of military personnel killed during the invasion itself has been estimated to be 9,000 by other studies. Under these assumptions, the number of noncombatants killed by the coalition military is too small to be meaningfully measured by a sample of this size, but is probably under ten thousand. The criminal murder rate is 60 per 100,000 per year, which is in the same ballpark as other estimates (and can be compared to 40 per 100,000 in Washington, DC). The combatant death rate is approximately the same.

Bottom line: this is a lot more like a bad crime wave than a war.

I agree that this survey seems a bit exaggerated, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Iraqi death toll rose to +20,000. And all this because of poorly planned airraids, soldiers going haywire on their first mission and the US unability to deal with the growing crime problems. Get out of there before its too late!

These claims will be studied. We'll learn more. There's more on bbc now.

Mr Straw said: "Because it is in the Lancet, it is obviously something we have to look at in a very serious way.

"It is, however, an estimate that is based on very different methodology from standard methodology for assessing causalities, namely on the number of people reported to have been killed at the time or around the time they were killed."

...

Lancet editor Richard Horton said: "Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths, not fewer. This political and military failure continues to cause scores of casualties among non-combatants."

He urged the coalition forces to rethink their strategy to "prevent further unnecessary human casualties".

Oh my god... I thought it was only about 15,000. :(

War causes alot of deaths, what did you expect?

Oh my god... I thought it was only about 15,000. :(

Well, the raw data in the study absolutely do not support its conclusions. Having carefully analyzed the study, I would say 25,000 combatants killed by coalition military, 25,000 criminal murders (common street crime), 5,000 civilian deaths by coalition military and 5,000 civilians killed in terror attacks by insurgents. Which would be reasonable numbers consistent with several other surveys. Of course the margin of error is +-10,000 for all of these.

What is almost certain is that you're in far more danger of being murdered by a criminal in Washington DC than of being killed by the US military in Iraq if you are not an insurgent.

I thought liberals were supposed to focus on the future and not worry about the past.

Almost everyone has realized the war may have been a mistake. Maybe people should start thinking about how to fix the situation instead of complaining about it.
No-one who fails to look to the past for lessons, is fit to contemplate the future.

Liberals are supposed to do both, actually. It is conservatives who are forever looking to the future, brushing under the carpet their mistakes. There really is no point in trying to fix any situation unless one is prepared to examine how it came about.

I bet when climate change turns out to be real, the US will tell everyone "Let's deal with the problem now, rather than dwell on the past." Thus neatly side-stepping any blame. The US screwed up in Iraq so badly, it is fair for the international community to demand an open review of its catalogue of errors as a pre-requisite to spending a single Euro.

No-one who fails to look to the past for lessons, is fit to contemplate the future.

Liberals are supposed to do both, actually. It is conservatives who are forever looking to the future, brushing under the carpet their mistakes. There really is no point in trying to fix any situation unless one is prepared to examine how it came about.

I bet when climate change turns out to be real, the US will tell everyone "Let's deal with the problem now, rather than dwell on the past." Thus neatly side-stepping any blame. The US screwed up in Iraq so badly, it is fair for the international community to demand an open review of its catalogue of errors as a pre-requisite to spending a single Euro.
Well, conservatives also look toward the past, but it's not the real past. They're forever hearkening back to some halcyon days of yore where the world was simpler and better and that never existed. They're always trying to get back to it, but they never manage it because it was never there in the first place.

But as to the first topic of the thread, I have only this to say: if you vote for or support Bush during this electoral cycle, you have blood on your hands. Period. You can get out of your responsibility for your 2000 vote, because very few people imagined Bush or his administration capable of this level of incompetence, but after 4 years of this, there is no excuse. If you vote for him this year, you are as guilty as he is.

Whatever the death toll is, my sympathy goes to all these poor, suffering people. :(

When Saddam was around
(1.) If he didn't like you, you're gonna die
(2.) Law and order
(3.) Planning to obtain WMDs destroyed after Gulf War I
(4.) Conventional and non-conventional WMDs under control
(5.) Saddam vs Kurds, Saddam vs Shiites, Saddam = Sunni friend
(6.) Saddam democracy (none)

When George W Bush is charge
(1.) Expect a missile or bomb to land near you house sometime in the future
(2.) Law, OK. Order? What order?
(3.) WMDS not found, missing or stolen
(4.) It was there, UN knows where they were but we lost them somewhere ...
(5.) US vs Sunni (Saddam loyalists), US vs Shiite Clerics, US vs Al Quaida
(6.) Democracy, if you don't killed voting or die from other cause

What an improvement

I agree with Jeruselem on that last point.

Whatever figures we accept for Iraqi deaths since the "end of hostilities", it is clear that far more people, on the order of several times more, are dying now under the US/UK occupation than under Saddam Hussein.

Are they better off now that they are free?

The motto of the US state of New Hampshire is "Live Free or Die". By American cultural standards, the Iraqis are now better off dying as free men and women, than they were living as the subjects of a fascist dictator.

Is it for us to make that judgement?