March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm and Winter Soldier

21 Responses to "March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm and Winter Soldier"

• Comment by: Josh

  1 03/10/08 9:47 PM | Comment Link |

  Hi Ben-
  Thanks for posting this. I think it’s a really great idea. I have a question though - and I promise it’s a friendly question out of sheer ignorance. Where did the “1 million deaths” count come from? I know that the death toll has been astronomical, but I thought it was nearing the 100,000 mark, not the 1,000,000 mark. If this is accurate, how incredibly sad this is for our world. Thanks for sharing this information.

• Comment by: joe

  2 03/11/08 3:54 AM | Comment Link |

  This just in from The Onion.

• Comment by: Rachel

  3 03/11/08 7:55 AM | Comment Link |

  I’m not sure what the death toll numbers are now, but I do know that it has been a year and a half since researchers at Johns Hopkins University came back with an estimated death count of over 600,000 Iraqis. I remember how devastated I was to hear that news and also how credible it seemed because of the excellent reputation of Johns Hopkins.

• Comment by: Benjamin

  4 03/11/08 10:42 AM | Comment Link |

  Josh,

  It’s a totally reasonable question. Yes of course I’m referring to the John Hopkins study, which has been much maligned, of course, but it still holds some weight with me. I think we’re talking about 2 different numbers here for a reason:

  1. Approaching 100,000–this is the number of case by case documented *violent* deaths in Iraq since invasion by the U.S.

  2. Approaching 1,000,000–this is the *total* number of *excess* deaths in Iraq since invasion. By excess here I believe they mean to say that if you compare the death rate in the whole population before and after invasion, the death rate after invasion is a lot higher. This is due to general destruction of infrastructure. People die because of lack of electricity, lack of water, lack of food, lack of drugs, lack of ability to move from here to there, lack of doctor/hospital availability/functionality, etc. Does that make sense?

• Comment by: Benjamin

  5 03/11/08 10:49 AM | Comment Link |

  Oh, here’s the actual Lancet (John Hopkins) study, if you want to read it. As I understand it, the 1 million is a forward extrapolation of these numbers, because the study was done May-July ‘06 and now it’s some 20 months later.

• Comment by: Rachel

  6 03/11/08 2:10 PM | Comment Link |

  I also think that any soldiers who have committed suicide upon returning from a tour of duty in Iraq should be included in the US casualty count.

• Comment by: Herb

  7 03/11/08 7:08 PM | Comment Link |

  Hmm, let’s forwardly extrapolate the number to what? Hmm. A million? Yeah,that’s a huge sounding number and no one on this blog will disagree :o) Man it must be convenient to see the world in such black and white terms. Is that because there are no decisions to be made, just opinions to be agreed with by like minds?

• Comment by: David H

  8 03/11/08 8:09 PM | Comment Link |

  Herb, are you familiar with the Johns Hopkins study that was published in Lancet? While you may disagree with the findings — many do — it is a common practice with such studies to forward extrapolate. The figure arrived at comes from a variety of survey means but is fixed at a moment in time. If the circumstances that led to the figure — i.e. the war — continue, then the death toll will continue. Such a forward extrapolation is likely to arrive at a less accurate figure than the one with which many already disagree, but it is an acceptable survey technique.

  As for seeing the world in black & white terms, you lost me. Do you mean dead or not dead? Or war bad vs. war good?

  I’m not exactly clear on how that makes a world where no decisions need to be made, but I would welcome your alternative viewpoint on exactly how many civilians have lost their lives as a result of the Iraq war. Pres. Bush and the government of Iraq both discounted the JH study, but offered no counter figure or justification for the charge the study drastically inflated the death toll. Talk about seeing the world in black & whites, they seem to be saying it ain’t so cause I say it ain’t so.

  Also, quite the contrary to your assertion, I would think those commenting here believe fully that there are momentous decisions to be made largely because they no longer accept the B&W propaganda being pumped out by the U.S. administration.

  But, once again, if you have a factual basis for your assertions I would love to a) hear it and b) see links to it.

• Comment by: Benjamin

  9 03/11/08 11:13 PM | Comment Link |

  It’s interesting. The number seems to bother some people a lot.

  Is everyone ok with Iraq Body count’s number of approaching 100,000 civilian deaths?

  Is a million a lot worse than 100,000? I guess I’m a bit confused about that. I mean what if we let it be “only” 100,000 civilian deaths? Can someone explain to me what has been gained by 100,000 civilian deaths? I’m picturing Safeco field and Husky Stadium, two of our big local sports stadiums, full of the corpses of Iraqi men women and children. Surely they died for *something*? What was it?

  Would it be less important, somehow, to speak out against their deaths than it would be to speak out against the deaths of a million?

  Help me out here.

• Comment by: David H

  10 03/11/08 11:57 PM | Comment Link |

  Would it be less important, somehow, to speak out against their deaths than it would be to speak out against the deaths of a million?

  I can’t help but think what the reaction in this nation would be to 100,000 dead Americans. I helped cover the World Trade Center attack. I don’t want to minimize that atrocity. But I also know first hand the reaction of people to that death toll. Like those in that building, many from that 100,000 or 1,000,000 figure are people who were not in the military of Iraq or the government of Iraq. Many were women and children in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The question for some will always be what was purchased with their blood. That is the justification. That end result makes it worthwhile. I sort of understand the logic, but it doesn’t compute for me. They, like the people in the World Trade Center, didn’t ask to be numbers in some larger equation. They didn’t want to be in a war. And whatever is purchased will be for someone else.

  We can wait around for history to judge the justness of the cause or whether it all works out in the end. But that doesn’t matter to the innocent dead. Nothing will make it OK for them. Such justifications are for the living. And perhaps, just perhaps, those justifications are easier to live with if the number is lower.

• Comment by: Rachel

  11 03/12/08 2:39 PM | Comment Link |

  There is an excellent post on this topic today over on the God’s Politics blog: I Never Saw Them as Human Beings

• Comment by: David H

  12 03/12/08 7:22 PM | Comment Link |

  I have been thinking today about how it would feel to tell my daughters that we lived on the front-line of the war against terror. As a result we would have to live without regular electricity, the assurance of clean water, schools they could attend, grocery stores in which we could safely shop, and hospitals that could treat our ills. What’s more, anyone of us could die at anytime (obviously it would help to drive that home if we had lots of friends, relatives or acquaintances violently killed recently and regular stories about people dying almost at random just because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time).

  But most important, I would conclude, is that they should feel good about our suffering and possible death because otherwise the front-line in the war on terror might cut through our neighbor’s house. That would plainly be wrong.

• Comment by: Josh

  13 03/13/08 3:22 PM | Comment Link |

  Rachel and Ben-
  Thanks for the information! I appreciate it. I think whatever the case, 100,000 or 1,000,000; it’s still too many. I’m not a pacifist, but the responsibility of the silenced voices should lay upon the hearts of those on both sides of the conflict. Let’s pray for peace and goodwill.

• Comment by: Herb

  14 03/13/08 9:52 PM | Comment Link |

  David,
  I’m sorry but what assertion did I make that I have to back up? I just questioned the 1,000,000 assertion that Ben made. Guess what, I hate this war but if no one ever stirs the pot it will make for a boring blog. No matter what side of the political spectrum, and rags like Sojourners are political,statistics should be questioned. So what if it happens to be the popular political view of this blog. Is it immune? What happens to faith when it goes unchallenged? It becomes stagnant and complacent. What about a blog full of like minds that goes unchallenged? This blog is political. As political as anything on the Christian Right. Let’s not become as close minded.

• Comment by: David H

  15 03/13/08 11:17 PM | Comment Link |

  Herb said:
  

  Hmm. A million? Yeah,that’s a huge sounding number and no one on this blog will disagree

  Maybe I completely misunderstood what Herb was trying to say. Yes, 1,000,000 does sound like a really big number. But does it sound too big? If so, why?

  If the point is to question the number then one would need to read the study. That would permit an educated basis for questioning the methodology or findings of the study. What the Bush administration has said is the number sounds way to big, but they have failed to mount a critique of the study or posit an alternative. Thus, when they say it sounds like a big number they are making a purely political statement.

  I am not wedded to the 1,000,000 death figure. I am open to alternative thoughts on the subject. However, I don’t find that number particularly relevant to my feelings on the war. One death is too many from my viewpoint. That is not a political view, that is my perspective as a follower of Jesus.

  If, Herb, you want to question the statistics, question them intelligently. Read the studies. Try to understand how the statistics were formed. Then challenge those things. If you do, you will find people here willing to consider your thoughts and their possible ramifications.

• Comment by: Benjamin

  16 03/14/08 3:10 AM | Comment Link |

  Just to help the questioning along, here’s Iraq Body Count’s own press release calling into question the conclusions of the Lancet study. Although the authors of the study (pre-)acknowledged some of the types of questions that IBC offers, and answer them reasonably well, in my opinion. Here’s what the study’s authors say:

  Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia,21 we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population based estimates. Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence.26 Nevertheless, surveillance tallies are important in monitoring trends over time and in the provision of individual data, and these data track closely with our own findings

  (I left out their citations/footnotes)

  It makes a certain sense to me, actually, that media reports would be enormously underestimating deaths during periods of very high violence. Was anybody in the media, for instance, reporting deaths in the Vietnam War at the same levels of numbers as we ended up with after the war? 4 *million* dead Vietnamese? I wasn’t around back then, but I’m guessing nobody had anything like that number in their head *during* the conflict, or it would have ended way sooner?

  (maybe that’s just wishful/naive thinking on my part).

  I mean I suppose in the end we’ll know, when things ultimately someday settle down over there, and a proper census gets taken, and we can look at actual numbers pre and post.

  But thanks Herb for stirring the pot. More pot stirrirs are needed in the world, I’m guessing =) And thank you David for engaging! You guys both rock.

• Comment by: david h

  17 03/14/08 6:24 AM | Comment Link |

  Real totals may always only be guessed because of the acknowledged millions who have fled the country since the war’s onset for Iran, Syria and other not very open socities. reported difficult living conditions there for poorer refugees may lead to many deaths that can’t be tracked.

• Comment by: libhomo

  18 03/16/08 10:10 AM | Comment Link |

  Two things:

  1) Is this blog signing up for the blogswarm?

  2) Here is more info on the 1,000,000 deaths number. I should point out that Opinion Research Business has estimated the number at almost 1.2 million.

• Comment by: Benjamin

  19 03/16/08 3:01 PM | Comment Link |

  libhomo.

  1. yes.

  2. Thank you =)

• Comment by: libhomo

  20 03/16/08 3:52 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks. The blog has been added to the list.

• Comment by: David H

  21 03/17/08 7:33 PM | Comment Link |

  I heard some remarks from Vice President Dick Cheney today that kind of got me thinking.

  First:

  “…if you reflect back on those five years, I think it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor; that we’ve come a long way in five years, and that it’s been well worth the effort.”

  Apropos to our conversation here, it makes me ask to whom the endeavor in Iraq has been well worth it. The dead can’t speak, but I wonder if they see the value.

  But the other thing that struck me about the statement above is the penchant Cheney and Bush have had for prematurely assessing a situation, especially when they believe it is positive for them. Once again they appear to be declaring in some sense that this is “mission accomplished.” How in heaven’s name do you determine if a) the effort is successful, and b) well worth it until after you are done?

  Second:

  I think given the enormous effort that’s been made and the sacrifices that have been made, both in terms of lives and national treasure, to succeeding in Iraq, it’s very, very important that we succeed, that we not quit before the job is done; that we need to remember that our objective here is victory and that we need to be prepared to do whatever it takes in order to achieve that.

  Bush/Cheney have proved remarkably unable to define victory, as proved by the Nov., 2005 National Strategy For Victory. That “comprehensive” document provides vague generalities on what victory means and how to get there. Despite such nebulous terms and concepts, most Iraq watchers agree that virtually none of the goals outlined in that document are even close to being achieved. Begging the question, how then can our endeavor be considered successful.

  In fact, just Friday, Gen. Patreus said in an interview in Baghdad that “no one” in the American and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services. Such progress would seem critical to Bush/Cheney’s vision of victory.

  Finally:

  “…was that a link between Iraq and al Qaeda? Seems to me pretty clear that there was. But it’s a question — I would urge you to go read the report. I know ABC reported on it. If you dig into the report in depth, I think you may find that there was an extensive relationship with a broad range of terrorist groups, that he was a state sponsor of terror and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

  This was in response to what was likely a self-serving set-up question by the reporter from The Weekly Standard who Cheney uses to back up his contention of links between Saddam and al Quaeda. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Cheney’s perspective is almost completely at odds with that of the people who compiled the report in question.

  According to ABC News, which Cheney says did some stories on the report, the Bush administration is deliberately quashing the Pentagon assessment because it makes men like Cheney out to be somewhat ethically flexible on issues of truth.

  So, to sum up, original reasons for the war are a complete fabrication (a fact Bush/Cheney still admit only selectively). Terms for victory are at best poorly defined, but certainly not near achievement. Yet the Iraq endeavor has been successful and well worth the effort. Only with this pair could any of this be taken seriously and with them you must because they are deadly earnest when it comes to the lives of others.

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