大象传媒

Dodgy dossier

Illegal war giving rise to what should be called Genocide

Tony Blair: WAR CRIMINAL

Even if the bodycount is 'only' 100,000, it is despicable

'Crimes against humanity' and 'Crimes against peace' are charges he should face

I was indeed shocked by the total, but the reason for me writing is by the careless use of the heading: "655,000 Iraqis, or around 1 in 40 of the Iraqi population, have died as a result of the 2003 invasion."

"Since" would have been a far more accurate portrayal than "as a result of". It seems apparent that you or whoever wrote the piece has set out their stall quite clearly... But an anti-war stance simply does not justify such a flippant disregard for the actual cause of those tragic deaths. Come up with a more complete estimate as to how many died as a direct result of the US-led occupation and how many died at the hands of the terrorist insurgents or by the sectarian hit squads and you'd be doing your job more correctly. To simply massage them all together and report them as you have for me smacks of sloppy, sensationalist and biased journalism from a news provider that should know better....

Tim Ellis, I think you have mis-understood the report, the 655.000 deaths are "excess" that means that the authors compared deaths before and after and found that this number ARE a result of the invasion. Also, the report cites 31% of these deaths as a result of coalition forces actions or airstrikes, thats still a hell of alot of people directly killed by the invasive forces.

At last, a report that uses the MOST accurate methods to estimate the total number of civilian deaths in Iraq has come out.

I do hope that we can now bury forever the misleading and embarrassing surveys out there that so grossly underestimate the real death toll.

And in reply to another poster, as the coalition forces in Iraq are responsible, under the Geneva conventions for ensuring the safety and security of the civilians in the country that they invaded, the blame for the deaths of these 600,000 poor souls can be laid fairly and squarely at the doors of the US and UK governments.

So Bush says he does not believe the Lancet statistics. Well did we expect him to.
If he told me it was dark outside, I'd have to look for myself, the man is an unmitigated lier.
So they do not do body counts.They did in Vietnam, and they had to tally with the munitions used, otherwise there would be trouble. This did lead to over estimating the dead Vietcong, all to keep the accountants happy.
The best comment on the American way, intentional or not, was the closing sequence and the music they played in the film, 'The Deer Hunter'.

Re:They do make clear that 2/3 of the violent deaths were at the hands of insurgents or as a result of the sectarian civil war.
The report actually says 31% were as a result of coalition forces the rest are "other" 24% and "Unknown" 45%. How does this transpose to "deaths at the hands of insurgents and sectarian violence"?

The next time an election is due in this country, lets do away with actually counting votes, let's just select a small sample of people and extrapolate the result for the whole country.

Sounds reasonable to me.

what's an election?

Oh yeah, one of those things that changes one identical ideology for another equally identical one

Only "controversial" in so much as the Lancet study flies in the face of the Bush/blair Talking heads.The same study/methodology was applied by the Lancet in determining deaths in Rawanda and Kosovo,which of course the UN accepted as it supported the Western stance.The "Body Count" of 50,000 only refers to those deaths which are reported in the media.Should these figures not also include those deaths which occured during both the 12 year Nato bombing campaign,numbers unknown and the UN sanctions,about 1,000,000 most of which were children."Genocide masquerading as policy" as described by one of the three heads at the UN who resigned in protest,or indeed the potential deaths/cancers for all concerned from the effects of Depleted Uranium.

He is the self portrayed total messed up religous neo fanatic that speaks with God, he is, as he keeps reminding us, the Commander-in-chief of the USA, the most powerful country in the world.... Just how does he sleep knowing that he is responsible for such carnage .
Power corrupts & whatever the body count.. one is too many...some would say 600,000 is genocide.

Oh boy.

JPseudonym, you don't need to physically count every body by hand in order to offer a credible estimate of a number of deaths. Well, maybe you would have to do so since you are clearly not an epidemiologist, but properly trained statisticians certainly don't need to.

Similarily, you could estimate the number of votes each candidate in an election receieves once you have an adequate sampling of real votes. In fact, TV networks do this all the time by calling the winner many hours in advance of the final, official count.

I've always considered the Iraqi Body Count must be a gross underestimate as it relies just on media reports. What is particularly damning about these figures is that the comparison is with Iraq before the invasion when the people were suffering with our terrible sanctions. Unfortunately, 大象传媒 TV News is headlining this report as 'controversial' which will take the pressure off Tony Blair. It is frustrating living in a country with such an extremist government and to be unable to call it to account for its actions.

Maybe Bush & Blair could hire Saddam Hussein as an advisor so he can show them how to restore order back to Iraq? Seems he is the only one who can do it.

I'm not surprised Bush doesn't believe the figure, he's not too good with numbers: "It's clearly a budget, it's got lots of numbers in it." George W Bush, Reuters 5 May 2000

There's some breathtaking inarticulacy and incoherent drivelling (even by Bush's standards) from 4 minutes 15 seconds into the programme -- worth watching a few times over. If the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath were not so utterly terrible, one could find it very funny. As it is, however, it should make us weep.

The Lancet getting a bit political on foreign affairs (again) - what's their agenda? - 600,00+

Thought enough issues with British Healthcare before commissioning creative' flawed research - just before the yanks elections - coincidence?

Interesting debate tonight on these stats, (where was Paxman to question them on 'research')

Personally think Iraqbogycount far more realistic 43,000 - 48,000 [1]

Lacent figures as with claims about 1+ million deaths of German PoW after WWII in Allied hands.

Simple question, in both cases where are the families of the alleged victims, on this scale you cannot hide things.

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1]

Prime Minister Blairs's remark to David Cameron to " get serious about substance" is amazing. There's no reason for the death toll figures in the " The Lancet " to be concocted or falsified. It was good to hear MP John McDonnell, prepared to face up to the truth and speak much needed common sense.

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Whose killing & murdering the VAST MAJORITY of people in Iraq?

- Iraqi on Iraqi

- Muslim on Muslim (sectarian massacres - sunni / shia)

- foreign Muslims murdering Iraqis (sunni / shia) terrorist groups / states.

- muslim/iraqi insurgent elements (sunni / shia)

- muslim/iraqi terrorist elements (sunni / shia)

- muslim/iraqi criminal elements (irrespective of faith)

Is that REALITY too challenging for Muslims & anti war brigade to comprehend.

Esp since it does not fit into their 'bogeymen' equation.

YES, the Iraq government & coalition forces have responsible for maintaining order .... but its rather self evident that for too many Muslims & Iraqis desire to kill each other to settle religious scores & make political gain, is greater than their desire to either oust the coalition and/or to get on with their lives - they would rather take others.

So whether you buy into Iraqibodycount [1a] & [1b] estimate of dead approx 43-48,000 or buy into The Lancets [2a] [2b] flawed creative figures of 300,000 - 900,000+ 鈥�. rather telling of certain Muslims & Iraqi people mentality & priorities & actions.

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1a]
[1b]
[2a]
[2b]

Watching the explanations of the way these figures were arrived at I am inclined to believe that they are the most accurate ones currently available.

They contrast with the American method of not counting Iraqi casualties at all, and with body count methods which are clearly not going to get everyone for reasons that were explained very well. Death certificates were produced for over 90% of the deaths in the sample anyway. The methods used were the same as in other conflict zones and have never been challenged when they were convenient for western policy.

It isn't good enough for the people responsible for the Iraq war to dismiss these statistics as innacurate without providing any proof for their claim or reliable stats of their own. Are we to believe that the Lancet is biased but the US and UK governments are not? That is not my view.

So as UK citizens we must now become accustomed to living in a country whose government took a leading role in a war that has claimed over half a millio innocent lives. People are dying faster in Iraq than they did in Vietnam. Our own forces are being recklessly exposed to this situation, somehow expected to prevent a growing civil war. Our cities are now targets for terrorists.

All this might have been somehow justifiable if we could point to real progress in Iraq. We can't. Most strategic assessments currently say the situation is getting worse and heading towards full scale civil war and possible eventual partition of the country. The only winners in this war have been Extremists and profiteers.

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH

is that you are a fascist, vikingar, remember, like I told you several times before, like when you threatened people who thought the war was bad with prison, you're a Nazi sympathiser, a FASCIST is what you are, vikingar

To quote myself:

"vikingar sails in his longship, trawling from newsnight forum to newsnight forum, calling everyone "multi agenda believer, anarchist, corrosive tripe peddler, fringe element, radical, communist, fifth columnist and leftist", basically anyone who isn't a fascist gets this treatment

Anyone with values such as truth, accountability, peace and justice, is a leftist spy who in his own words, might have to go to prison

vikingar, your horns are looking pompous and silly

How ironic"

...and...

"Derr, MI nam3 is vIKINgaR and I fiNk vat U R awl crasie 'cOS you w0nt B Thashists liyck me, whY wonT U awl B my fwend and be fashists, we can awl be happY 2 gever, if U wont B fashiSTs wiv me ven I H8 U al you donut under stand me U c0mmies R al responsibull 4 my prublims iye H8 U al"

you silly little man

The Lancet has definatetly got far more political - why?

THE LANCET

It does have a history of campaining [1]

Given previous Lancet estimate of 100,000 dead [2] now raised to between 300,000 to 900,000 [3] you have to wonder who & why is behind the commissiong/publishing of such 'research'

THE EDITOR

Richard Horton, editor of medical journal The Lancet [4]

OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Time For Change Conference - organised by the Stop the War Coalition - Manchest 23rd September 2006 (coninceide with 1st day of Labour Party Conference) [5]

Guest Speaker - Richard Horton

Doing what? - "Richard Horton, editor of medical journal The Lancet, tore into Blair鈥檚 supposed 鈥渉umanitarian鈥� justifications for war" [5]

Listen to Dr Richard Horton rather spirited speech [6]

Other reporting on the event [7]

SUMMARY

Dear Old Dick certaintly has a agenda, which he is using The Lancet to further.

Q. are the owners [8] of The Lancet happy that the credible medical related work & reputation of their noted organ is being highjacked by left wing politics?

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]

SEE ?

I told you so, if vikingar has ever "served God, Queen and country", I would suggest that he served the God Sumer, Queen war machine, and the country of the Nazis in exile, perhaps as an arms dealer maybe ?

The methodologies used to estimate the "bogycount" as vikingar would say, are accepted means of gathering data, at least when it serves the propaganda

The real terrorists (those who use terror/war to achieve political gains) are, sadly, within the government itself, personally, I think nothing short of a latterday Nuremburg trial will be appropriate treatment, not only for the policy forgers, but also for fascist collaborators such as vikingar

Convoy .... we have a stalker :O

vikingar

People for various reasons/motivations/standards buy into low estimates (43,000) or high estimates (900,000) [1]

Either way can Iraqis/Muslims* ever be trusted not to wipe each other out? **

* esp those who travel there or fund others to do so, in order to kill other Muslims

** sectarian violence - Islamic Fracticide

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1]

Before rubbishing the claims of the Lancet and those behind the study it's worth remembering a couple of important factors surrounding this and other calculations of those dying in Iraq.

1. Back in 2000 the same metholodgy and group were responsible for the survey conducted in Congo where it said that 3m people had died during the war there. These same figures were used without hesitation by the US State Department, Bush and Blair who cited the figures at the 2001 Labour Party Conference. The media also widely cited these figures without talk of them being "controversial" or "incorrect". They were accepted without question.

2. Iraq before the invasion was in a terrible state. A decade of sanctions had helped kill at least 500,000 Iraqi children. It's health system had failed, drugs were not readily available and equipment was broken down or not available. The invasion of Iraq and the subsequent violence had simply made this situation worse, not better. So would it not be wise to study these figures and take the terrible situation in the past into account before even considering how this has affected the current one?

3. Iraq Body Count's figures comprise only of "Casualty figures [...] derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources." This can in no way, with the best of intentions as im sure they have, even begin to fully capture the number of dead. It relies on media sources reproducing all the reports they receive from Iraq and that these reports are a comprehensive reproduction of all deaths in Iraq. By their own criteria the numbers are 'correct', but their criteria cannot possibly begin to match the true nature of events inside the country, as they and media organisations will freely admit. Sadly media quotations of these numbers often fail to explain fully how much of a shortfall their numbers are.

It seems to me that the main problem for people who refute these figures (and note they are almost singularly not epidemiologists) is that they cannot comprehend that 'our governments' or 'we' could do something which is so utterly disgusting and constitutes a war crime. After WWII the Nuremburg trial condemned wars of aggression by saying that, the waging of aggressive war was "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Bush and Blair should be tried as war criminals. We should not hide behind a cloak of deception and engage in a game of cognitive dissonance where we believe that the deaths of 50,000, 100,000 or 600,000 Iraqis can be justified. If we do, we're simply no better than those we seek to condemn and rightly prosecute for the waging of wars that kill many innocent people.

People should face up to the fact that we allowed a situation to arise where war criminals run our governments and only escape the prosecutaion of international law because they ARE the law.

Post No.19 is a classic example of someone who thinks that his elected leaders and the state they represent should be entirely free from any criminal responsibility regarding the current situation in Iraq.

Before the war those protesting against it warned that killing amongst Iraqis and a possible civil war would be the likely outcome of the invasion. This important premise was ignored or rubbished by posters like him and so it would seem by those in power whose planning and understanding of the likely outcome was grossly inadequate.

Had this war not been waged by the US and UK I wonder if he'd be so quick to make excuses for those responsible? Somehow I think not.

In response to vikingars assertion that "Iraqis kill Iraqis"

I'd like to point out that the terrorism there is similar to the terrorism here or in the u.s. - who gains ?...not the groups the claimed attackers supposedly represent

The terrorism has, it can be theorised been instigated in part, and fabricated to a large extent, by the propaganda machinery to add a 'fog of war' to hide the reality that Iraqis are attacking the coalition as a matter of resistance and pride in their nation, we would do the same thing

Saddam should have been tried by an international court, rather than the price being paid by Iraqis which is immoral and illegal

Few if any have a high regard for posters who support their position with multiple ID's :(

vikingar

Just what ARE you on about now ???????????

Tony Blair is by nature, a very creative person who is always challenging established views and opinions, he is an individual. He has the ambition of and background of a Yuppie, but this is teathered by his devout religious views and I would say sense of social justice and morality.

It is just that he is redefining the rhetoric of the left in our country, what new lanbour thinks social justice is is very different from that of say Tommy Sheridan in Scotland. The secret is as an original you can麓t just redefine everything. You can doubt everything, you can have a view, but to impose your morality on others is what I call the AXIS OF EVIL of which sadly Tony and Bush are guilty. These are the fundametal laws of properganda practicsed by the Nazi party and their succesors.

In my Christian religion, yes it is right to help the Samaritan, but the Samaritan was only one man and so was his helper. To help people in their struggle for freedom and life on an individual basis is entirely different from intending to help by sending in an invasion. This is murder, and that is precisely why, according to Tony麓s own beliefs God (a) does not interfere with our lives or rulers however in need or tyrannical they are(b)That he sent his son Jesus as a messenger, becuase God wanted to understand what it was like to empathise with men as a man, but he wasn麓t a ruler, Jesus was a normal man who only ever helped individual people during his life. The Jewish people were expecting a Roman figure on a chariot
to slay their enemies and set them free, but if you are Christian you believe the true God was different, a helper of individuals.

This is all we should seek to be as Christians, nothing more and nothing less. We should help individuals but not invade countries.

Tony Blair has missed the central message of his own religion (a) yes, think different but (b) always keep your head down and get on with being who you are ie do not take on too much responsiblity even as a God or especially in any position of power as a God like figure ie Ruler (c) Help individuals and small groups such as friends and your family.

Ref Hugh Waldock wrote #31

"You can doubt everything, you can have a view, but to impose your morality on others is what I call the AXIS OF EVIL of which sadly Tony and Bush are guilty. These are the fundametal laws of properganda practicsed by the Nazi party and their succesors"

Surely not another attempt at moral equivalency & intentional blurring of distinction between Nazis, Islamofascism & the decisions of elected governments from progressive societies *

* regardless of whether you agree with such policies or not, who are accountable (elections coming up) & people can campaign to hold them to further account.

This intellectual 'grand standing' of language & comparison for the sake of IMPACT may work well in certain 'intellectual' clique'/quarters.

However, it confuses the vulnerable & enables the language & arguments of radicals, extremists & terrorists, who will exploit the vulnerable this this.

You have to wonder how many vulnerable people in our society have been so triggered by such argument, language & inappropriate comparisons.

Why not stop doing the unpaid PR Commissar role for the enemies of progressive societies.

Why not engage in constructive language & not in destructive & inaccurate comparisons.

btw - I also am a Christian. Whilst prepared to turn the other cheek, not prepared to 'bend over' & take it regardless (not alone in that).

How about we'll man the gates against 'the barbicans' (both sides now) whilst you & others so inclined, can continue to pontificate from the sidelines, but without undermining the very societies that guard your right to pontificate & influence debate through peaceful & civilised means.

Ref 'Tommy Sheridan' if that's your idea of a politician you need your moral compass overhauled. I'd ask Tommy about a guide to 'adult entertainment' not pointers on social justice.

vikingar