“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” - Winston Churchill
In the course of a Boston Globe column today in which she calls for a referendum in Iraq as to whether the US stays or goes, Ellen Goodman writes:
"Today we have nearly 3,000 American deaths, and by one estimate 650,000 Iraqi deaths."
Ever the environmentalist, Goodman dutifully recycles the findings of a report published in the Lancet magazine on civilian deaths in Iraq. This study, prepared by two anti-war partisans, has - as I noted here back in October - been thoroughly debunked. See more recently this piece which among other things quotes "Hot Air" thusly:
"The Lancet study would have us believe that 2.5% of Iraq has been killed by the war in the past three years. It would have us believe that more Iraqis have died as a result of a mid-sized insurgency than Americans died in World War II. Or the Civil War. Or Germans, who died in World War II, fighting against the combined might of the USSR, the British Empire and the United States, at a time when Germany was reduced to conscripting young boys and old men to resist those armies as they approached Berlin.
So, yes, 650,000 Iraqis have died "by one estimate." But does Goodman believe it's the most accurate estimate? If not, why does she cite it, and what does it tell us about her good faith and credibilty? For that matter, what does it tell us about her credibility if she does believe it?
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Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
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I estimate that 65 million Ir
December 15, 2006 - 09:26 ET by GalvanicI estimate that 65 million Iraqis have died. Does anyone else have an estimate?
Uh, dude. That's like more
December 15, 2006 - 09:34 ET by MightyMouthUh, dude. That's like more than twice their population. However it does sound about as reasonable as any estimate we have heard from the MSM.
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
According to the CIA World
December 15, 2006 - 09:51 ET by Red JeepAccording to the CIA World Fact Book the population of Iraq, total, 26,783,383 as of July 06. Is the whole country dead? https://www.cia.gov/...
Red, I think you missed the
December 15, 2006 - 09:52 ET by MightyMouthRed, I think you may have missed the sarcasm in his post.
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
Liberals Love Dead Americans
December 15, 2006 - 10:20 ET by badanovLiberals Love Dead Americans
And if they can't create policies that kill more Americans, they will settle for dead allies, or Iraqis, etc.
And if they can't help kill Americans et al, they'll just make up the numbers.
Brute Force: If It Doesn't Work, then You're Just not Using Enough!
Globe
December 15, 2006 - 09:42 ET by iveseenitallThe Boston Globe. That says it all. Journalists have a lock on ignorance.
NEVEr, NEVER trust a liberal
How come the picture was chan
December 15, 2006 - 09:50 ET by Quidnunc SavantHow come the picture was changed?
Good catch on the picture c
December 15, 2006 - 09:56 ET by Mark FinkelsteinGood catch on the picture change. Although the first one was from the Globe itself, it was so unflattering that I thought it was just unfair to post. People can judge for themselves here.
It is a much more flattering
December 15, 2006 - 10:05 ET by Quidnunc SavantIt is a much more flattering picture of her , although it looks like it may be about 15 yrs old
Go f*#& yourself , I say what I want. "Oriana Fallaci"
Chivalry is alive at NewsBu
December 15, 2006 - 10:06 ET by Mark FinkelsteinChivalry is alive at NewsBusters.
Mark, that was very fair an
December 15, 2006 - 10:07 ET by MightyMouthMark, that was very fair and balanced of you. It's amazing what a little sand blasting and air brushing can do. :-p
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
a shame
December 15, 2006 - 10:52 ET by misterbillas a former Bostonian, I had learned not to read anything by Goodman years ago. She came on as a total liberal and also an extreme women's rights person. It is too bad (as I can tell by today's post of her column) that they did not sand blast and air brush her attitudes.
Somethin' bout dat name
December 15, 2006 - 20:20 ET by acumen"She (GOODMAN) came on as a total liberal and also an extreme women's rights person."
Someone help me here - there's just something about her name and women's rights. I just can't quite......
Obviously this goodman must have gotten her Iraqi civilian death numbers confused with her very same media's projected Katrina deaths. Not that it matters as the whole premise of the American insurgent media's conclusion remains the same - both were caused by Bush.
Fed Hard Candy with a slingshot!
December 15, 2006 - 10:21 ET by BBallleaperYour kindness overflows, but I don't see a gun held to her head in the first photo. If anything you should show the "before" and "after" side-by-side to demonstrate the shallowness and deceptiveness of the liberal press. Frankly, I find both ugly!
The thing I find most disturb
December 15, 2006 - 09:53 ET by Conservative in the ArtsThe thing I find most disturbing is not only are they not checking facts anymore, but that all "journalists" are citing other "journalists" as experts now. They don't go to the source, they don't double check.....let's just ask this newpaper reporter but do it on live TV. Take my favorite example of Tim Russert. They indroduce him as the Washington cheif, but treat him like an expert, not a reporter. How about bringing back Tom Brokaw? How is it that TV news is just reporting: "The New York Times says today........"????
You've struck on one of the k
December 15, 2006 - 11:03 ET by GalvanicYou've struck on one of the key foilbes of the MSM: It feeds on its own production. It's but one more indication of the MSM's sense of self-importance (arrogance?) that it cites itself to establish bona fides.
It is the lack of proportio
December 15, 2006 - 09:56 ET by Red JeepIt is the lack of proportionality in reporting about Iraq that is so maddening. The fighting there is not on a WW2 scale or Viet-Nam or our own Civil War. where over 600,000 died, more than any other war our country has been in.
It should probably be in the news as much as Afghanistan is… not much. But given the MSM attention it is easy to see why many like Ellen Goodman, who don’t question media distortions, thinks its bigger and deadlier than WW2 and we are mired in defeat So she just passes the lies along she hears and unfortunately this is the way much of opinion in this country is shaped based on MSM distortion
wait... i don't get it what's
December 15, 2006 - 10:10 ET by troublemakerwait... i don't get it what's the point of this? Its like quibbling over the color of the truck that just ran over your neighbour.
The fact remains that any civilian casualty isn't a positive sign- whether its fair or not. Here is a link to how' they came to their conclusions which is much more stark than findings from the White House and another British finding, i'm unsure how they do their estimates, I mean how is it even possible to estimate these numbers- its inexact by nature.
It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that
President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times
the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the
British-based Iraq Body Count research group.....
The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by
epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of
Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the
British medical journal the Lancet.
The same group in 2004
published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months
after the invasion. That figure was much higher than expected, and was
controversial. The new study estimates that about 500,000 more Iraqis,
both civilian and military, have died since then -- a finding likely to
be equally controversial.
Both this and the earlier study are the
only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The
technique, called "cluster sampling," is used to estimate mortality in
famines and after natural disasters.
While acknowledging that the
estimate is large, the researchers believe it is sound for numerous
reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for immediate
post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the researchers
confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were also
substantiated by death certificates.
http://www.washingto...
This buisness of an estimated
December 15, 2006 - 10:19 ET by rimskyThis buisness of an estimated 650,000 dead.. I did some rudimentary math on this. Let's assume that coalition forces have been in Iraq just under 1,400 days. That is, 365 days times 4 years = 1,460 days. Subtract about 90 days because we're not quite to 4 years yet. So, that's 1,370 days. Divide 650,000 by 1,370 and you get roughly 475 deaths per day.. EVERY FREEKIN DAY? Are we expected to believe that the MSM stringers would have missed all those deaths? And of course 475 is an average. So, some days would be less, probably alot less, meaning other days there would have been MANY more! So, on those days where there had to be, like 1,000 deaths or more, where was the MSM then? Why haven't we heard about those days? 650,000 is not accurate!
Don't worry about doing the m
December 15, 2006 - 10:55 ET by BruzillaDon't worry about doing the math. The answer to how we killed 650,000 Iraqis will be given when the NYT reveals secret documents about George Bush's and Dick Cheney's secret death camps, which were covertly managed by whoever the Republican nominee for President is, right before the 2008 elections.
650,000 is not accurate!So wh
December 15, 2006 - 10:56 ET by Prester John650,000 is not accurate!
So what's your point? This is the MSM we're talking about.
Body count
December 15, 2006 - 11:58 ET by mastersofdeceitThe numbers are all over the place. But it would be fair to give the low estimates a mention also. However in regards to The Lancet..
" However, Stephen Moore, a consultant for Gorton Moore International, objected more strongly to the methods used by the researchers, commenting in the Wall Street Journal that the Lancet article lacked some of the hallmarks of good research: a small margin of error, a record of the demographics of respondents (so that one can be sure one has captured a fair representation of an entire population), and a large number of cluster points. "
Look at the chart to see how wide estimates vary.
Let me see if I have this rig
December 15, 2006 - 12:04 ET by paperheadLet me see if I have this right. The MSM still wants you to believe that 650,000 Iraqi civilian died since the invasion while at the same time they support talks with a leader who believes that the holocaust never happened and 6,000,000 Jews did not perish during WWII? Sounds kind of whacked doesn't it?
"Nothing is all. All is
December 15, 2006 - 13:43 ET by Unsane"Nothing is all. All is contradiction." - M3shuggah, "D3humanization", from Catch Thirty Thr33 (2005)
"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy." -Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)