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Strib Politicizes Iraqi Dead
The Red Star Tribune is siding with the zealots on the left and John Hopkins inflated numbers as to how many people have died in Iraq. From the Red Star Tribune's editorial page:
Of the 655,000 deaths the Johns Hopkins researchers calculated in their extrapolation from the sample, about 601,000 resulted directly from violence and about 54,000 from a generally deteriorating health and environmental climate in Iraq. The researchers estimated that American forces were responsible for almost one-third of the deaths. (emphases added)
The piece states that the methods used are the same as used by the U.S. Census and various survey agencies. This means they have not actually verified their data, only surveyed some people and extrapolated the data to get the desired results.
Bear in mind that census data is often inaccurate and riddled with bad or duplicate data. I know this, as I've been able to identify an ancestor as appearing twice on the 1880 census. It was a common practice to put in duplicate data and erroneous data back then as census takers were by the household listed. And people frequently gave bad information as they liked their privacy.
Now we have a bunch of yo-yo's using the same kind of methods, getting only sample data, and then manipulating the data to get such horrendous numbers (if they were indeed accurate, they would be horrendous) in order to push their own political agenda.
If the data used is accurate, then where are all of the bodies?
If, and I do mean IF, the United States were truly responsible for deaths in these kinds of numbers, it would not be possible to hide these bodies, even if we were the kind of country to do so (which we are NOT!). That's something on the order of 200,000 people per year and somewhere around 500 people per day, EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Note that nowhere is it stated that John Hopkins or any of these other so called "experts" has actually attempted to validate the results of their "survey's" by actually identifying and counting the bodies.
This is not to say that large numbers of people have not died in Iraq. There has been, and mostly as a result of sectarian violence or terrorist attacks. Then there are those killed by Iraqi, U.S. and Coalition Forces in the defense of Iraqi freedom.
I don't know what the numbers are, and am not sure who does, and I would not be surprised if it is in the range of 100,000 killed. But when I read a statement that over 655,000 people are CALCULATED to have died based on sample data and surveys, one has gotta ask: where's the bodies? If anybody has the raw data available, please, point me to it as I'd like to see it.
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