Typical

[NorthView]

[Rhound50]

[redhouse]

[MecosKing]

Rednoob: ya i understand the methodology, and later on i read more closely, and understood that the thing you mentioned wasnt included. My basic point here is that though the method may be sound, we dont really know how they carried the thing out, and we dont know how they skewed thier figures, or how interested they were in one outcome versus another. Most surveys have that problem- and trust me, surveys can BS alot. Example, before the reagan election, i hadda hear my parents whine n moan how him and (mondale i think?) were like neck n neck in the polls, and low and behold, 54/46 landlide on election day. Figures dont lie, but liars figure, as the old saying goes. Of course im not gonna just go and say oh this polls prolly bullcrap, so im not gonna beleive it. The way id evaluate a thing like this is to look at it in relation to all others, and try to do some evaluations of the opinions of various people onnit. Thats really the only way to evaluate the veracity of somethin like this imho.

What i notice when look at this stuff is that this survey is a great great outlier compared to every other figure out there. Im willing to give you W's estimates are prolly BS. But even if the IBC project is probably low, is it really gonna be 6x too low? Also, they citre a similar survey that reached vastly different conclusions using the same method:

"he IBC argues that the Lancet estimate is suspect "because of a very different conclusion reached by another random household survey, the Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004 (ILCS), using a comparable method but a considerably better-distributed and much larger sample."


he Fafo institute, who are a bunch of socially conscious noobs who im shure hate the war, said:

"and research director for the ILCS survey, which estimated approximately 24,000 (95% CI 18,000-29,000) war-related deaths in Iraq up to April 2004, expressed reservations about the low pre-war mortality rate used in the Lancet study and about the ability of its authors to oversee the interviews properly as they were conducted throughout Iraq. Petersen has been quoted saying he thinks the Lancet numbers are "high, and probably way too high. I would accept something in the vicinity of 100,000 but 600,000 is too much."[34]'

More peaceniks callin shenanigans: ", director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, was quoted in an interview for Nature.com saying that Burnham's team have published "inflated" numbers that "discredit" the process of estimating death counts."

Point being that there are many criticisms of this thing from left leaning people even, and this poll is a great outlier. Yet for SOME REASON, all the anti war people take this number and run with it, totally ignoring all the other numbers out there, and all the criticism of this thing, coming even from thier left leaning brethren. To me, all the evidence points to this number being overinflated by a fair bit.

-----2nd part of post -----

Ill preface this by saying: LOL@NV and that story about the kid slaughtering a family.

I am honestly not one to question anyones testimony who i dont know without reason, i very much assume most people are telling the truth unless for whatever reason, thier testimony becomes questionable, and to me, this is very questionable.

For one, there have been stories of atrocities to come outta there aplenty that get people all fired up, things like the disrespectful treatment of prisoners/civilians, gitmo torturing, etc. This war is under a microscope, and lots of people would go way out of there way to expose something like this, yet this is the first i've heard of this. And yet you're going out on a intellectual limb and saying that not only did this happen, but it probably happens at a substantial enough rate to be taken as a factor which measurably affects the deathtoll in a death toll survey. And all the while we see guys like beuchamp, who are so bent on changing the tide of public opinion that they actually MAKE UP stories of atrocities and expose them- and yet your telling me that houses full of families get slaughtered all the time and everyone keeps quiet, and not a single one of these 18-20yrold kids decided he would leak it, or decide to be insubordinate and create an issue. Sorry, but as much as you'd love to beleive that W's army of brainwashed hellspans go around doing things like this, it just doesn't ring true. With the way this war is being conducted, and the way people feel about it, and the determination and magnitude of the forces against it, I really dont think theres any goddam way that this story, if it is true at all, occurred with any frequency, at least not as stated. I mean, when you were 18, did you tell bullshit storis to impress your friends? I know your gonna say that explanation is a copout, but if you take an honest look at all the other considerations, i really think this story doesn't hold much water.

Think about it, if you were gonna send someone in to do this kinda task, whore you gonna send? Some punkass 18yrold british redcoat, or a team of staff seargents from special forces who kill for fun and who would rather see thier entire family dead than leak something that would discredit the war effort? Hell, send iceman5 even, he prolly wont tell anyone. But the idea that they sent this kid in to do something like that is LOL. You couldnt sell that story to the OJ jury, and yet you took at at its face value. LOL@NV.

TBH, the Beuchamp story actually makes me WAY less inclined to think that there are egregious human rights violations going on, because the way i look at it, if there were gutwrenching injustices being visited upon the innocent every day, then why would he have to go make something up for emotive effect? He could just go and tell a real story, and not have to worry about being exposed as public jackass #1, dontcha think? And if like you said "The media knew this, therefore they can say this" - well trust me if the media knew it they'd say it, they obviously don't cause if they did, they'd be trumpeting it all over the place. In case you've forgotten, the media hates W and the war, and wouldnt mince any words if it didn't have to.

And since you ended your little tirade with your usual kick in the nuts, I will only say that fact you have the stones to call me bigoted and biased, and at the same time accept conclusions which go against most available evidence and applicable facts, just so you don't have to have your beleifs discredited is lol. LOL@NV, wake the fuckup, thx.

[Beavis68]

[redhouse]

[NorthView]

[Internet Girlfriend]

[Beavis68]

[Beavis68]

[MecosKing]

[antneye]

[Beavis68]

[NorthView]

[MecosKing]

Erm- im pretty sure i quoted a bunch of 'reliable' sources all of which were critical of the 600k figure. I got those from the wiki links that redhouse provided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#Casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... on_of_Iraq

ANd as far as casting doubt on the personal testimony, i think i made it really clear that it had nothing to do with the kid himself, but that all factors taken into consideration, i think that it is inherently unbeleivable. Seriously, did you read anything i posted?

I basically did say 'the jury's out' and gave a bunch of reasons why i think you could never sell that to a jury, and hence why i didn't beleive it. Go back and read what i said.

Fine, if you wanna put it that way, i invite anyone reading this thread to be a 'juror' in this, and say whether that story, as stated, is more likely to be true or to be false (or at very best a gross exxageration of the truth), given all the factors discussed.[/quote]