Death Rates in Iraq and Here

I have come to expect skewed posting from fshagan, but this wins the booby prize.

Does the cold war ring a bell ?

 

Do you guys have any idea how great it is to read these arguments and not have to see false facts and conjecture interjected every other post? Oh, the joys of ignoring...

That being said, my curiosity overcame me, and i clicked through to see what the good doberman had to say here... Lets see how he's attempted to (not so) subtly change the topic:
First, compare death rates - oops, people saw the immediate glaring problems
Second, Forwarding his mposition that we should be leaving
Third, a useless post fro which i came away with just one word - SNAP!
Fourth, intentional baiting of Alric, with really no point what-so-ever to the conversation at hand
Fifth, Asking how deaths from a terror attack affect death rates... can we say stupid?
And finally sixth, claiming we haven't refuted the numbers yet (and yet it's been shown the comparison he was drawing was invalid) and then bringing in some BS about killing hundreds of thousands of them, and essentially challenging us to prove that, even though no one here has said anything remotely close to that

Now, i'm a dog lover. i really am. I've got one, my g/f has one, my mom has 3, and i love them all. But they're just like people - some of them you can only take in small doses. And doberman's are just a bit too big and obnoxious to take in large quantities.

And finally, in closing, if you ever want to be taken seriously here, you bad dog, post some references for your numbers - for all we know you're pulling them out of your black and brown tush.

 

I did dispute your argument with simple arithmetic.

But there is also this:

This was published in the peer-reviewed Lancet journal and was dismissed by the Bush administration WITH NO ARGUMENT!

"An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003–September,
2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.

Methods Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered.

Findings Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

Interpretation The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased."

The whole article is here:

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/j...73606694919.pdf

 

Do you have any specific issues with the methodology? I believe it's a pretty standard statistical technique for analysing population effects. Presumably you were similarly skeptical of the team's reports about the Congo, Darfur and Bosnia?

Sticking your hands over your ears and going "la la la" when scientists tell you hard truths you don't want to hear is pretty lame, if not outright dishonest. So naturally, it's exactly what I expect from you.

All I can say is I'm bloody glad you're not practicing in this country. I never was a fan of faith-based medicine.

I'm rather fond of Roberts' quote about critics of his team's figures:

 

This whole thread.... right down to the premis.... is wacked...

You're comparing the DC murder rate (as defined by DC laws and national US laws) against people having been killed in Iraq.

I'm not sure if anyone is actually tracking any murders in Iraq... a handful maybe.

The thousands that were killed that you are discussing in this thread were not murdered at all. They were 'Victims of sectarian violence' which is not officially a murder.

In DC, there would be 0 victims of Sectarian violence, so the two can not be compared.

Do the NYC murder stats for 2001 show a spike to include the WTC victims as murders?

I'll state my conclusion as this: The murder rate in Baghdad is less than in Boston.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Nov 28 2006, 02:52 PM) [snapback]354900[/snapback]</div>

Great! Since nobody's being murdered in Iraq, I guess we can bring our troops all home now?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Nov 28 2006, 01:52 PM) [snapback]354900[/snapback]</div>

By the definition of sectarian violence (see below), violence between members on Prius chat could be considered to be sectarian violence. we all share the same mode of thought with regards to the Prius, or we wouldn't be here. In a more common mode (something you see on TV all the time - think Law and order, CSI, etc), you could have one person murder another for social, political, or economic gain, even though they were both of the same group of thought - think someone killing someone else for a promotion in a company. Would that be labeled as sectarian violence, or murder? I say both.

 

As for murder rates, I live in Chicago and am happy to say it's nothing like Bagdad. You can play with statistics all you like, per this per that, etc. The fact is, we don't have large quantities of murdered bodies dumped in the street every day. Take yesterday's Associated Press report for Nov 27:

>>Also Monday:-- Police found 60 bodies, some of them handcuffed, blindfolded and with signs of torture, most of them in Baghdad and nearby provinces.<<

To compare the murder rate of any US city with Iraq is delusional. Imagine the outcry if 60 bodies were dumped in the streets of any U.S. city in a day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Nov, 11:52 AM) [snapback]354900[/snapback]</div>

No kidding. You mean they are all dying of old age?

This reminds me of the U.S. dept of agriculture's recent refusal to recognize "hunger" in America. Instead, they now refer to the hungry as having "very low food security".

 

If the death rates in Iraq are so low as some here profess, why don't they go there to be safe? I'll bet they could find something to do.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Nov, 08:23 PM) [snapback]355116[/snapback]</div>

I bet they have a need for doctors!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Nov 29 2006, 08:45 AM) [snapback]355166[/snapback]</div>

Again, dbmertroll, you put words in people's mouths, ignore the main point, and try to divert the subject. Perhaps you should go into politics or get a job on Fox news. Just because I point out that your analogy saying Iraq is no more dangerous than US cities is nonsense does not mean I think Saddam was some angel. The fact remains ...

>>Baghdad police recovered the bodies of 46 people around the city in the 24 hours to Monday evening local time (Tuesday morning NZT), one of the highest tolls of suspected sectarian death squad victims in recent weeks, an Interior Ministry source said.<<

...that there is NOTHING like this going on in the US. Let's keep the thread on-topic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Nov 29 2006, 10:31 AM) [snapback]355186[/snapback]</div>

Right on. Argumentative techniques fomented by Fox news "journalists" like O'Reilly. Letterman put it best when he said to O'Reilly: "You are putting words in my mouth like you put facts in your head".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Nov 29 2006, 08:38 AM) [snapback]355189[/snapback]</div>

Whats your point? the "killing grounds" you're comparing it to in the US - ie major cities - represent a very small percentage of the total land mass as well... why don't we stick to the point here instead of trying to obfuscate it?

But going along with what you were saying, lets do an apples to apples comparison here... what would be the outrage is 50 bodies were dumped in the streets in chicago, new york, or DC? What would be the outrage if even one body was dumped in the middle of a small rural town (population 1000)? It's all a mater of scale - when you're not in a major city, it takes less murders for it to be a dangerous situation for you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Nov 28 2006, 05:02 AM) [snapback]354747[/snapback]</div>

Skewed?

I don't think so. You may not agree with me, but I don't think I've ever "skewed" stats knowingly or intentionally. (Unless you have some other definition of "skewed" in mind; I take it to mean purposefully altered to reach a conclusion that wouldn't be supportable otherwise).