Kerry vs Bush

That's totally out of line to compare elected American politicians to mass-murdering terrorists.

Sorry if we don't hold George Bush and Dick Cheney on the same pedestal that you do.

And you know what?  Bush does have a personal agenda.  You'd be a fool to think otherwise.


Oh and by the way... mass-murdering terrorists?  You remember Shock-and-Awe?  The whole point of that was to put fear into the hearts of Iraqis. And the mass-murdering part?

100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, says study

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Friday October 29, 2004
The Guardian

About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.

The study, which was carried out in 33 randomly-chosen neighbourhoods of Iraq representative of the entire population, shows that violence is now the leading cause of death in Iraq. Before the invasion, most people died of heart attacks, stroke and chronic illness. The risk of a violent death is now 58 times higher than it was before the invasion.

Last night the Lancet medical journal fast-tracked the survey to publication on its website after rapid, but extensive peer review and editing because, said Lancet editor Richard Horton, "of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq". But the findings raised important questions also for the governments of the United Sates and Britain who, said Dr Horton in a commentary, "must have considered the likely effects of their actions for civilians".

The research was led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers who went to the 988 households in the survey were doctors and all those involved in the research on the ground, says the paper, risked their lives to collect the data. Householders were asked about births and deaths in the 14.6 months before the March 2003 invasion, and births and deaths in the 17.8 months afterwards.

When death certificates were not available, there were good reasons, say the authors. "We think it is unlikely that deaths were falsely recorded. Interviewers also believed that in the Iraqi culture it was unlikely for respondents to fabricate deaths," they write.

They found an increase in infant mortality from 29 to 57 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is consistent with the pattern in wars, where women are unable or unwilling to get to hospital to deliver babies, they say. The other increase was in violent death, which was reported in 15 of the 33 clusters studied and which was mostly attributed to airstrikes.

"Despite widespread Iraqi casualties, household interview data do not show evidence of widespread wrongdoing on the part of individual soldiers on the ground," write the researchers. Only three of the 61 deaths involved coalition soldiers killing Iraqis with small arms fire. In one case, a 56-year-old man might have been a combatant, they say, in the second a 72-year-old man was shot at a checkpoint and in the third, an armed guard was mistaken for a combatant and shot during a skirmish. In the second two cases, American soldiers apologised to the families.

"The remaining 58 killings (all attributed to US forces by interviewees) were caused by helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry," they write.

The biggest death toll recorded by the researchers was in Falluja, which registered two-thirds of the violent deaths they found. "In Falluja, 23 households of 52 visited were either temporarily or permanently abandoned. Neighbours interviewed described widespread death in most of the abandoned houses but could not give adequate details for inclusion in the survey," they write.

The researchers criticise the failure of the coalition authorities to attempt to assess for themselves the scale of the civilian casualties.

"US General Tommy Franks is widely quoted as saying 'we don't do body counts'," they write, but occupying armies have responsibilities under the Geneva convention."This survey shows that with modest funds, four weeks and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilan deaths could be obtained."

The Guardian? Isn't that the media outlet that told it's readers/listeners to call people in Ohio and tell them to vote Kerry and why Bush is evil (or some such)?

The death of one civilian is unacceptable.  One!  The US went to "liberate" Iraq from a tyrant right?  Did Hussein ever kill 100,000 civilians over the course of a year and a half?  Did he ever throw Iraq's economy in shambles, and did he ever flame as much anti-US resentment?

About the news source, you want another?

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Also:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041028/140/f5ivs.html

Friday October 29, 05:58 AM

100,000 Civilians Dead In Iraq War - Report

Around 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to a new report.American public health experts said the high death rate was partly due to US air strikes on towns and cities. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths have happened," said Les Roberts of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a report published by The Lancet medical journal.

"The use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children."

Mortality was already high in Iraq before the war because of United Nations sanctions blocking food and medical imports, but the researchers described what they found as "shocking".

Previous estimates based on think tank and media sources put the Iraqi civilian death toll at up to 16,000.

The researchers blamed air strikes for many of the deaths.

"What we have evidence of is the use of air power in populated urban areas and the bad consequences of it," Roberts said.

Gilbert Burnham, who collaborated on the research, said U.S. military action in Iraq was "very bad for Iraqi civilians".

"We were not expecting the level of deaths from violence that we found in this study and we hope this will lead to some serious discussions of how military and political aims can be achieved in a way that is not so detrimental to civilians," he said.

Click here for more breaking stories from Sky News

Edited by Kubrat

Because America is "justified" in its actions. 

America is not targeting civilians, sure they die, but that's what happens.

And Janus, I wouldn't say that I embrace double standards, but I do believe that the end justifies the means, for the end endures and the means are fleeting.

Originally posted by Gubukjanggoon Oh Canada!  Here I come!

You guys are making jokes about moving north but yesterday Imagration Canada had a record day of hits on thier web site from Americans. The usual is 20,000 but they had 115,000 yesterday sugesting that we may be looking at an immagration boom........ Think I'll go get the guest rooms ready. 

Originally posted by Genghis America is not targeting civilians, sure they die, but that's what happens.

I really hope that is true.  And if it is, then Genghis is right on that count.

But there is also a difference between targetting and not targetting civilians.  Although if you have high-yield bombs you should know not to use them in civilian populated areas....  otherwise it's just as bad I think.

Originally posted by Kubrat Did he ever throw Iraq's economy in shambles, and did he ever flame as much anti-US resentment?

Well, you could say that he (Hussein) actually did throw it into shambles. But flame anit-US resentment? A good bit of Europe alone can do that without the help of Bush.

I totally concur, to put it as the ingenious episode of South Park did, it was the choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwhich.