Sunday, September 16, 2007
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Senator Reid Asserts 1,000,000 Iraqis Dead In War
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
5:48 PM
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The Democratic Majority Leader made this assertion in an interview published today:
Q: You disagree with the assessment President Bush and Gen. Petraeus put forth this week. How do you think the course should be changed?
A: All you have to do is look at what they said. Nothing has changed since the surge started. Today, now we learn that 1 million Iraqis have been killed since the war started. A million. That's pretty hard to comprehend: 3,800 Americans, 30,000 wounded. More than 2,000 double amputees.
Senator Reid's assertion may be based on this absurd "poll." (HT: Rawhide Reality).
The casual trafficking in casualty estimates that immediately become propaganda for our enemies is astonishing. BDS strikes again.
Over 54 months, a million deaths mean an average of 18,518 deaths every month, or about 600 a day --every day for the last four and a half years.
Islamist radicals don't need to make up outrages for their media machines to distribute. Senator Reid has done it for them.
UPDATE: In November of 2006, Iraq's health minister estimated the numbers of Iraqi s killed since the war began as between 100,000 and 150,000. But what's a 600 % exaggeration when you are trying to cause political damage to George Bush?
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That we aren't killing enough Iraqis fast enough? Is that why he wants us to surrender and bail out so the Iranian forces can come in and finish the job faster? |
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OK the 1 million is way off. But do you dispute the 3800 dead, 2000 amputees, 30,000 wounded.
Isn't that bad enough? And is America safer for it? General P. didn't seem to know. |
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OK the 1 million is way off. But do you dispute the 3800 dead, 2000 amputees, 30,000 wounded.
Isn't that bad enough? And is America safer for it? General P. didn't seem to know. |
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..make me very,very tired.All the newer threads here at HH are absolutely infested by KosVermin. They must have been ordered by their Fuehrer to turn Hugh's site into a fetid swamp of Leftoid Paranoia & Rage.Harry's a caricature and a loser...His congressional minions and water carriers are losers...His grotesquely carved co-constipator,San Fran Nan,is a loser...LOSERS.
There,I feel better. |
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Reid was actually speaking about the 1,000,000 dollars in real estate profits he chose not to declare ot the IRS. When he used the word, "dead" he meant the efforts of conservatives to bring this whole situation to light. When you refer to his mentioning of "WAR", scary harry was alluding to his personal declaration against the republican party for having exposed this little detail and that he is not happy to have been placed in the postion to answer any questions about his business dealings.
So, you see Hugh, all is not what it seems with Reid. You've got to Reid between the lines to understand what he really means. He would never claim that 1,000,000 Iraqis have been killed, 'cuz he knows with certainty that this number is actually somewhere around 1 billion dead--give or take a couple of hundred. |
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O'my Gawd.You may be right. |
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I still recall with great clarity the first few weeks following 9/11. Listen up 'cuz this story is gremane to Hugh's about Harry Reid. It was in mid October when Noam Chomsky was invited to Cambridge to give a talk about Afghanistan. He had in the audience literally thousands of tongue-wagging academic elites. He started his little presentation declaring that it was a fact that the United States military was already in Afghanistan (remember, this was actually before we officially began our aggressive response) and was actively engaged in the "slaughter of millions of innocent Afghan women and children...".
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I saw they got the number by polling a thousand or so Iraqis for whether anyone in their family had been killed, but since presumably some families were completely wiped out then this number must be a low estimate. If you adjust for the error, it's a million billion dead... all because of Boooosh!
I first saw this poll on the front page of Kos, but I didn't think the Democratic leadership would be dumb enough to site it. |
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My point?
This is not new----Harry Reid making these uneducated, flailing comments. And he worries not about being called on it---'cuz it does not matter a whit. None of Noam's minions, students, elitists, Leftists, progressives, liberals ever called for Noam Chomsky to "come clean" on his heinous remarks-----similar to our media never being made to correct their aggregious errors in reporting lies and falsehoods during the Katrina disaster.
And their is a footnote to Chomsky's crapola. A mid level employee of one of the human aid organizations (i.e. Human Watch) came forward months later and conveyed that these charity organizations actually spew out false information in order to "tug at the heartstrings" of giving people. He admitted that indeed someone inside his group of organizations were making claims similar to Chomsky's bcause their was in early 2001 such a falling off of human aid and support in that region. it just goes to show you that these professors don't vet their information before spewing to large grojups of people. And the thousands who listened intently to Chomsky on that October 2001 evening ate it all up, hook, line, and sinker-----kinda like what Harry Reid expects his constituency to believe when he makes his 1,000,000 Iraqis dead claims. |
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thinks all those mass graves we're finding contain the remains of people we killed. |
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on the 100 million people Land Office Harry's friends and idols murdered in the last century... |
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..the once competent semantics professor gets $$, book deals,tenure forever,nauseating publicity and the President gets slimed.Chomsky,like his buddy Howard Zinn,hates American exceptionalism and wishes it defeated.He and Zinn see our(their!)country as Evil Incarnate.And,because of the beyond odd condition of the academic professorate,they prosper vastly.I detest them. There,I said it.Feckless Harry needs badly to be hurled from office by a Nevada Republican.He,too,is without any discernable honor,much less conscience.Just garbage. |
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Has there ever been a such a collection of utter mediocrities gathered for the purpose of passing legislation, as those found in the current Democrat Congress?
I challenge even die hard Democrats to offer a name of just one, even semi-lucent Democrat.
The Democrat Congress is dumb as dirt, spectacularly unqualified and completely unaccomplished.
Congressional Democrats would have a hard time distinguishing themselves is lower-level, special education class.
Who actually voted for these people? What on earth were they thinking/drinking/snorting/shooting? |
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You are all in the Boehner camp -- a "small price" has been paid in this war? I am glad to hear you all on record with that. I think America will remember -- and I bet Iraq will, too. We will never know for sure how many Iraqis are dead, but I am willing to posit the lowest estimates -- low six figures. That is *not* "better off" than under Saddam -- it is business as usual. And it is far from over.
Anyway, this is a distraction -- though it doesn't come close to Fox News's all-day coverage of OJ (christ, it's deja vu). The bottom line is that Petraeus can point to military advances (though most of the numbers are just back to what they were about a year ago), but he cannot answer the bigger questions -- the ones that really matter. And no one can point out any significant political improvements. |
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You're correct in that Petraeus' numbers relative to last year don't show much improvement YtoY.
The point though is that after Samarra as bombed, all bets were off and the country exploded in violence. Relative to where things were in December/January, things are improved and can potentially be greater improved yet.
What I don't get is that some folks don't even want to try anymore... |
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So if 600 a day, on average, are killed based on Mr. Reid's belief in the O.R.B., the British polling agency’s total numbers, that then exceeds the daily battle deaths during major invasions of the island chain reroute to Japan during WWII. At the start of the Guadalcanal fighting, 1,600 American Marines and GIs died on the ground in a single month or an average of 53 per day.
Obviously the MSM has missed the horrible scope of the holocaust being perpetrated or allowed by the US in Iraq or we would have heard about it before now. I would have assumed they could have seen that amount of violence even from the International (Green) Zone or at a minimum it would have been reported by their al Qaeda, er, Iraqi stringers. And damn, the UN and John Hopkins missed it too. And no observations by those embedded journalists I help support; Michael Yon, Michael Totten and Bill Roggio caught in the thick of battle with our troops supposedly on a killing spree for these many years. This information is so secret that even the CIA doesn’t know enough to leak it to the NYT.
The duly elected representative of the Senate Democrats, Senator Reid, makes President look absolutely brilliant. Keep it up Mr. Majority Leader; you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time or so said another President believed to be stupid in time of great conflict. Someone even called an ape. Sound familiar?
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Time and time again, Reid, and other Dimswitches, have been broadcasting jumped to conclusions, exaggerations, and, when necessary, baldfaced lies in a successful attempt to help our brave troops LOSE THE WAR AGAINST MADMEN TRYING TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY OUR CHILDREN ARE GOING TO LIVE IN. How is it these treasonous scum are alive, much less not in jail, where they would probably be killed by other inmates, who are not traitors? I gotta go throw up. |
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lie big.
I think Lenin said that, or was it Lennon? |
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With millions murdered, and millions of refugees, and millions dead from combat, its a wonder there's anyone left to populate a country that only started with 27 million in the first place. I think the left and the media (but I repeat myself) need to rethink their hyperbole. |
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You're forgetting (of course) the other estimate by American and Iraqi epidemiologists earlier this year at over 600,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.
That would make pretty close to a million dead by now, considering how many are dying per month in this deadly, costly and distrastrous war.
But, as per usual, TH's mouthpieces are feeding their readers with unsubstantiated claims. |
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What a relief to know that only 150,000 or so Iraqis have been killed since the war began. Say it was even twice that. It's almost like, who cares? Bush is practically blameless. |
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Re perceptions of townhallers---I just came off another townhall thread where posters are swearing up and down that the US military won't accept a recruit with any sort of criminal record or without a high school diploma. Since both of my daily newspapers as well as the several I read online all say different, and have for months, and a Google click produces much information opposite to what's being posted on townhall, I have the impression that townhall posters don't always distinguish between happy fantasy and documented truth. |
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A real reporter needs to ask Reid simply if he stakes his integrity on the reliability of the 1 million figure or if this is simply propaganda lie he is using? Who is lying to America is the question. Does he back this up as the True that he has vetted, that Americans need to know or he part of the lie? Will we have this discussion?
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...the hungry lefties lap it up
"American and Iraqi epidemiologists earlier this year at over 600,000 Iraqi civilian deaths"
As phony a number as when the Lancet/Johns Hopkins study tried it out.
Been there, done that. I'm sure it's all very grotesquely comforting in places where the deranged meet to massage each other's prejudices and sustain each other's hysterias.
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This is my head-shake moment of the day. For goodness sake: What on earth is Reid talking about?! Is the man off his rocker?! Is Reid nutty enough to believe that he can get away with the publication of falsehoods?
If Sen. Reid is not off his rocker, then he is presumably serious. And he therefore believes that distributing a Big Lie is a rational path to a Big Electoral Victory. And if Reid is right in that belief, the Republic is in trouble. |
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But let's not make light of the real cost. 3800 U.S. dead, 30,000 U.S. wounded and 2000 U.S. double amputees are real costs. And it is true that probably more than 150,000 Iraqis have died (although the vast majority of that is Iraqi and Iraqi violence). Nevertheless, given the poor state of progress for three years, I am surprised Republicans did not tar and feather Rumsfeld before he left town. I know that compared to WWII these combat casualties are light, but every unnecessary death and casualty is a tragedy. A lot of this was avoidable.
We are now looking at about 60-90 combat deaths a month in Iraq for the forseeable future. If we are going to do this we better be willing to do what is necessary to kick the Malaki government in the butt to make some political progress too. |
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Joe--wars are mismanaged. That's simply an extremely frustrating rule. I do think the substantial benefits brought on by "the surge" testify to Rumsfeld's error in not rapidly increasing the level of troops in Iraq after it became clear that a campaign of terrorism had started. But there is also a lot here that we don't know--we're not privy to the internal discussions inside DoD on force strength and the pros/cons of changing it. We also know the political price that the Democrats would have forced the President to pay for increasing the troop levels, and the price they're still trying to exact now.
In any event, in the present, this "let's kick the Iraqi government's behind and threaten them" attitude is basically childish. "Threatening" to leave Iraq will only convince all of Iraq's factions that they need to adopt maximal intransigence in order to prepare for the nasty and brutish mass-murder spree that will follow America's evacuation.
If Iraq is going to be forged into a livable practical-nation it's going to take some time. The coexistence and stability factor that's been achieved hereto has been forged in blood and painful work. We can't microwave Iraq to success. It's either slow-cook or forget it. |
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You didn't get the Republican memo- we've only paid a "small price" in Iraq.
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Wasn't Boehner's statement insulting to the troops? |
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I commissioned the second survey conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers and which was published by The Lancet in Oct 06 and on our web site, http://web.mit.edu/cis/human-cost-war-101106.pdf
The study was commenced by me more than one year before the 2006 elections. It took that long--mainly due to the extraordinary levels of violence in Iraq---to conduct the survey. There was no political goal apart from informing the public.
The survey, taken in May-July 2006, was a very large sample and its veracity has never been undermined. The methods are sound and well-tested. That does not mean that 655,000 dead is the exact number, but it indicates a range of "excess" mortality during the war.
What is significant about the ORB poll---using a different, but similar, method---is that it tracks almost perfectly with what the Johns Hopkins researchers found 14 months earlier. In scientific terms, this is exceptionally strong. Again, the number might not be exact, but it is probably correct to within 20 percent.
As far as one can tell, ORB is a private firm that does extensive polling, and their credentials are not in doubt.
Other wars have taken much larger numbers as a percentage of the population. The 4.5 million displaced also indicates enormous death tolls.
This is the best available evidence. The moral implications are for others to decide.
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welcome aboard. Appreciate your thoughts. |
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So, you've endorsed the attack on Syria by Israel----and opined that Bush should take lessons in the area of collateral damage. Your inference is clear----that our military efforts in Iraq have not been as successful as the Israelis in their targeting Syrian cache. However, your predictable myopia disregards, ignores, eschews any reality that Israel attacked Syrian nuke cache in the middle of the desert, devoid of any populated area----HOW CONVENIENT, your perception.
Bottom line:
You are fine with Israel attacking Syria in an unprovoked fashion.
You are patently unsupportive of U.S. military actions in Iraq. How disengenuous.
As for me, I fully support Israel in their active pursuit for self preservation. The same goes for my support of U.S. military in Iraq. I simply understand that mistakes are made in all wars. I merely ackowledge that when penetrating heavily populated areas, it is vastly different vis a vis dropping a bomb in an unpopulated "sandbox".
You are part of the, Liberal Pathetique. |
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Clarityseeker--thanks!
Furthermore it's clearly correct that there's no substantive comparison between the strike in Syria and the counterterrorism campaign in Iraq. The strike in Syria was aimed at dangerous equipment, and apparently succeeded. US efforts in Iraq are aimed at groups of specific individuals who move among and shelter within populations of non-combatants, and it's an ongoing, fluid mission. That makes any real comparison between the two situations non-existent.
If you want to explore a recent situation involving Syria that might serve as a useful comparison, look at the Nahr al-Bard city/camp in Lebanon. It was used as a place of shelter and a logistical/basing center for Palestinian terrorists who were attacking the Lebanese army. In response the Lebanese army launched artillery shells into the camp for the entire summer before sending in ground forces and declaring the terrorists "cleared". (see, for starters, here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2373645.ece) Of course the minor side-effect of all this shelling was the demolition of all the buildings in the camp. It is obvious that we will never know how many people really were killed by the Lebanese army.
Is that a counterterrorism model, laborlawyer, that you think America should follow?
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Well, I suppose it's possible he could have been combining the Lancet study with the figure (often quoted) of 500,000 Iraqis who died because of our early sanctions pre-invasion. (The ones that Madeline Albright said were 'worth it'.)
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The MSM has known all along that the figures "floating" around and used by democrats since the war began have been outrageous and intentional exaggerations. But, as usual, with the MSM, when a democrat LIES, the MSM happens to be "looking the other way". |
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The MSM has known all along that the figures "floating" around and used by democrats since the war began have been outrageous and intentional exaggerations. But, as usual, with the MSM, when a democrat LIES, the MSM happens to be "looking the other way". |
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...apparently thinks so much of his opinion, he commented three times. What WOULD we do without Joe here to educate us dumb hicks.
Yes, there's a cost and we're paying it, so our children, grandchildren, etc can grow up in a world where they aren't constantly looking up to see if today's the day a loser with a jihadist grudge flies another plane into a building to obtain his virgins.
Also, if I had a dime for every single lib who takes one comment by a townhally and somehow comes to the conclusion that said comment is the "official" conservative position, I'd have about three dollars, just today. |
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The Dem leadership seems like they are in a competition lately to make Benedict Arnold look like a patriot to America after he turned red. At least Arnold can take solice for getting the countries most famous treasonist title off his back. |
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Okay, that 1 million is just extrapolation of a study published in the British medical journal "The Lancet". That study (see Warren Small) found a number of "excess deaths" of 655,000.
The authors did not find 655,000 bodies. What was done was to interview some 22000 people. Then, from those interviews, they deduced some 547 "excess" deaths. In this case, "excess" means the study authors decided that the war had contributed to the death in question. Then, they scale this 547 "excess" death number up to the entire country.
This is a reasonable methodology--in an unoccupied country at peace. It's entirely possible that the study authors simply interviewed a "biased sample"--a group that
had reason to exaggerate the number of deaths,
due to hatred of Americans, fear of being seen
as friendly to Westerners, etc. Or, that they interviewed too many people who had been bombed and not enough that hadn't. Or, that they wrongly attributed the war as the cause of too many deaths.
It's been pointed out that if a cluster centered on Fallujah were included, the so-called confidence interval dips below zero--meaning that in that case, this study can't state in statistical terms that there have been ANY excess deaths at all.
It's kind of telling that the study's authors refuse to release their computer model code (which extrapolates the numbers up from the sample) and raw individual data--which would make it clear whether there was a problem with their sampling. |
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It is so funny that the man who was sent to IRAQ 98-0 by the DEM LEAD CONGRESS is belittle by what he has said and by the way he is the one in IRAQ fighting the war not you scimbags who will read anything and think it to be true. It shames me that this country has people in it that would want AMERICA to lose just for political gain. If what the GEN on the ground is taken as being untrue what would you consider all the junk on DAILYKOS and MOVEON to be? Im glad that they are giving us the amount of terrorist we are killing in IRAQ, because we know one thing for sure they are not wearing uniforms so tell me how they no how many IRAQI civilians that have been killed. I think it is a shame that you DUMBOCRAPS have the gall to sit hear an state that the US MILITARY have been killing women and children for the fun of it. DO you know that about 75% of the troops have children themselves. You scumbags ought to be blacklisted from ever putting your trash on this internet. I have family there and they tell me that what you are stating is FALSE. |
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Harry,
Please, PLEASE do America a hugh favor and go back to Searchlight and take up sage brush farming or jack rabbit ranching. You are an embarasssssment to the U.S. Senate. |
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These low-life pieces of scum make me sick.
America is in desperate straits if her increasing ignorant population keeps voting these traitorous CONgressmen back into office. The American public becomes more sheep-like to the 4th Estate/5th Elements MSM. Reid makes this ridiculous statement and every channel is covering OJ Simpson’s latest crime and Madonna’s claim to be a Jewish ambassador. No wonder some 7th century throwbacks think we are weak.
Thanks to today’s Leftist dominated public education system even the teachers are dumber than at any other time in history. How the heck can they teach civics when the have absolutely no civic pride? For the most part, they are bitter Socialists doing a below par job and being paid the equivalent of scientists and engineers. Every teacher that uses Math class to show Michael Moore videos should have their pay docked or be fired on the spot. Otherwise, you get silly airheads shopping Google for facts.
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Ron Paul & Obama are getting more donations from the military than by far than any other candidates. Do they know something we don't? Aren't we supposed to be supporting the troops? I always hear Hugh say to serviceman "thank you for you service"? I guess he says no thanks when that actually have something to say. |
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All of you people questioning whether Iraq is worth it answer this question. What is the freedom and safety of the US worth? So far we have paid a small price in comparison to WWII, WWI, Korea, and Vietnam. It is the soldiers who have paid with their lives and injuries not the so-called anti-war snobs. What have the anti-war done for the US? They would not fight even to save their own selves and families. They are cowards and the real issue is the fact that they are afraid that they may actually have to fight. How have their lives been interrupted--not at all? No they won't attack the US--remember 9/11. It is our fault. They have been attacking the US for 50 years long before President Bush. They really hate you anti-war people more than true patriots--just ask them. They will behead you first, all unbelievers before believers. At least patriots stand for something not against everything. |
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C'mon you big brutish Lefty. You know that never works. You're asking Poli-Sigh to leave the country, however, here's an individual actually putting his finger on some real sources of problems in our country---and you are unwilling to let him freely speak; asking him to instead leave.
Besides---BRobbed of all perspective, we heard from your side on how many of them were going to leave our country if GWB made it into office in 2001. Last I looked, your babe Barbra Streisand is still enjoying her seaside residence in Malibu. Alec Baldwin also said he was leaving if GWB was elected---never to follow through on his promise. George Clooney was similarly hear to make such claims---all he's done is purchase a vacation home in Lake Como, Italy. It's your side that threatens to LEAVE when complaining that things are not going there way. Yet, they are empty promises. Please DO NOT project your wankling ways onto those who merely identify realistic problems.
Otherwise, you risk BRobbed of compassion, BRobbed of perspective, Brobbed of reality----essentially, BRobbed of all things of value. |
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..not Chile.And,happily,they've mostly been rounded up and/or shot.See,like the deeply sensitive sociopath,Che Guevara,the peasants whom they were "liberating" turned most of them in.I love it when that happens. |
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I am looking for a thread halfway relevant to what I want to bring up because I think it's a good subject for discussion. The Iraqi government has revoked the contract of Blackwater USA to work in Iraq. "For Blackwater to do any work in Iraq will now be illegal." This followed an event in which Blackwater, a private security firm working on contact, randomly shot civilians. Blackwater has been handling security for Americans working in Iraq. Any comment? |
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It doesn't matter how many Iraqis die. |
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No friend of the war, this website has been tracking the casualties since the war started and even refute the study that scary Harry seems to quote.
Again, his statements just endorse further how he doesn't understand why we are there to begin with; people should keep speaking to this and start voting these people out of office who can't understand the reasons for engaging in this war.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2005-02,RNWE:en&q=iraq+body+count
The site isn't loading properly so hopefully no one has hijacked it. |
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