Freedom Is On The March

So many problems with this study - so many many problems.

First off - their baseline year showing just 5.5 deaths per 1,000 is a joke and anyone who studies population statistics will tell you so. People who try and slough this off to "oh but those people are popping out kids left and right and that's why the number is so low" have no clue. The reason so many countries run by dictators have such low mortality rates is that dictators don't report deaths.

Secondly - many of the people our troops are killing are foreign born fighters. We didn't invade "their" country did we? Many of the others that our troops are killing are former Baathist thugs from Saddams reign. But you don't care about that do you?

Even if the study is correct (and that's an huge IF that I'm not willing to grant) - the mortality rate of just under 14 per thousand puts Iraq in line with countries like Russia. My guess is that the numbers of the study are inflated but when the principle of the study admits that it was rushed (again) in order to be out before the US election - well then color me skeptical with a reason. (And color me skeptical of any journalist who just buys the numbers because they agree with their viewpoint - what happened to the jaded journalists who had to have things proven to them - this study was done about death without the people doing the study seeing a single corpse).

As far as the Army being in Iraq until 2010 - what did you think was going to happen? We are still in Germany, Japan and in Korea last time I checked. Its not a friggin drive by window. Its a war.

 

Oh and a big fuck you to Fenian for his choice of thread titles.

Even if the 14 per thousand number is correct - that means that 986 people per 1,000 are living in more freedom today than they ever had under Saddam Hussein.

Freedom is on the march but the blame America firsters are too blind by their hate of George Bush to see it.

 

You want to keep riding cripples who have f'ed up virtually everything they've touched, have at it.

I'm just not real interested in paying W's bills. My kids won't be, either.

 

Forget it, Ben.
The gent who was so impresssed with the academic credentials of Michael Freaking Barone a few days ago is now dismissing the most respected medical journal in the world because of things his favorite chickenhawks are telling him different. (Although big props to Doctor Victor Davis Hanson, the Achilles of the tree=farming set, for getting the word "poontang" into his column the other day.)
They really think they're doing God's work and not Halliburton's.
Sad.

 

You are equating freedom with democracy. They are not the same thing. When you can't leave your house for fear of getting blown up, you are not free.

 

Yeah - this guy is really an "independent" thinker. No reason at all to think he may be cooking his numbers

And I found it amusing that you used bloggers to support the first Lancet study but denigrate the bloggers who criticize this one. You are such a hypocrite

 

Not to open an entirely new can of worms ... and not to debate whether or not the bulk of Iraqis WANT to be free ... but this statement is highly suspect.

Think about it ... if the majority of Iraqis DIDN'T want to be free, or at least free under U.S. auspices, what would they do about it? Set up bombs and ambushes and snipers, right?

Uh-oh. Isn't that exactly what they're doing?

This is turning more and more into a Vietnam kind of situation. And before any idiots start with the "This isn't about us versus Communists," or "There were more deaths in Vietnam," or "You're comparing apples to oranges to apricots ..." let's consider it from a different perspective.

In Vietnam it was virtually impossible to tell who the enemy was. In Iraq, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify the enemy as well.

 

alley --
Fredo thinks the Iraqis are "tolerating" this violence?
Jesus, he is drinking again.
What choice do they have? We came in, kicked over their country, declined to commit the number of troops our own generals said we needed, guarded the Oil Ministry and not the civilian infrastructure, and created the circumstances for what is now a civil war.
Tolerate?
We are ruled by loons.
And their supporters.

 

The methodology is legit. The cluster sample is the best method attainable, and it is scientifically valid (unlike a convenience sample that, for instance). The 95% confidence interval goes to a low range of about 455,000, and that's still a hell of a lot. The most likely instance of bias in the study would be underrepresentation in instances where entire households were destroyed. Other biases possible would also yield higher death tolls. So, it could be more, and it's probably not less.

 

If you think that methodology is legit - then we can also use the same methodology to prove the existence of a huge stockpile of WMD in Iraq.

http://disturbinglyyellow.org/2006/10/11/lancet-600000-weapons-of-mass-destruction-in-iraq/

 

Point --
Good post, if only because epidemiology is not the same things as other things, like, oh, let's just pick one out of the hat, weapons inspection.
Same methodology's being used in Darfur, by the way. Nobody's bitching there except the Sudanese people who are deluded by their crazy rulers.

 

By your reasoning young blacks in Philadelphia aren't free either. Stats show that it is more dangerous to be young male and black in Philly than a US military person in Iraq.

Also let me point out that I believe that 3 of the 18 Iraqi provinces are now fully under home rule with Iraqi police and security forces. These 3 provinces are in the South too - it doesn't include the Kurdish provinces up North. A great level of economic and other freedom has been accomplished by the Kurds and if the rest of Iraq is given the chance - they will get there too. Freedom is indeed on the march in Iraq but some people here wish it wasn't because it hurts their worldview.