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UN marks soaring Iraq death toll
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| star-traveller |
| quote: | UN marks soaring Iraq death toll
More than 34,000 civilians were killed in violence in Iraq during 2006, a UN human rights official has said.
The envoy to Iraq, Gianni Magazzeni, said 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 hurt during the year.
The figure is nearly three times higher than calculations previously made on the basis of Iraqi interior ministry statistics for 2006.
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UN marks soaring Iraq death toll
ps.
But I guess most of people here, doesn't give a on that. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by star-traveller
But I guess most of people here, doesn't give a on that. |
i know i do. |
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| Fir3start3r |
It's not that we don't care, but in all honestly, that number is quite low compared to even before the war; Saddam beats those numbers by a long shot.
That still doesn't make it right however lets put some perspective on it... |
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| Magnetonium |
Geez. Well, they said Saddam was bad and killed many people. However, right now the civilians are dying from gun violence and bombings at a bigger pace than by Saddam's forces. You can make your own conclusions based on that for everything else.
Oh, and by the way, many Iraqis died of hunger and disease because of trade embargo - and who placed it? Did it cripple Saddam?
P.S. I am not back to my "regular" posting on this forum, dont worry. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
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Geez. Well, they said Saddam was bad and killed many people. However, right now the civilians are dying from gun violence and bombings at a bigger pace than by Saddam's forces. You can make your own conclusions based on that for everything else.
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What does 'pace' have to do with the total number that was brought up?
If you want pace, maybe we should look a little deeper into all the mass graves and gassings then? I'm sure that 'pace' was quick enough if you want to go there...
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Oh, and by the way, many Iraqis died of hunger and disease because of trade embargo - and who placed it? Did it cripple Saddam?
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That would be the toothless U.N.... |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
What does 'pace' have to do with the total number that was brought up?
If you want pace, maybe we should look a little deeper into all the mass graves and gassings then? I'm sure that 'pace' was quick enough if you want to go there...
That would be the toothless U.N.... |
More Iraqis have died as a result of violence after American invasion than at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his criminal gang. By many accounts anywhere from 600,000 to 650,000 Iraqis civilians have died since the invasion of Iraq has began. |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
More Iraqis have died as a result of violence after American invasion than at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his criminal gang. By many accounts anywhere from 600,000 to 650,000 Iraqis civilians have died since the invasion of Iraq has began. |
That number has yet to be substantiated by a valid source as it's generated by a statistical method that's very questionable.
Here's a statistical primer for you on why that number is bunk.
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Iraqi Death Count: 650,000?
How to read the latest study on mortality in Iraq.
By Daniel Engber
Posted Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, at 4:44 PM ET
Download the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up for The Explainer's free daily podcast on iTunes.
A study published in the Lancet this week estimates that 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of war since 2003. President Bush was quick to dismiss the numbers: "I don't consider it a credible report," he said on Wednesday. The next day a spokesman for Tony Blair said the figure wasn't "anywhere near accurate," and had been extrapolated from a small and unrepresentative sample. So, how good was the sample?
It's hard to say for sure. The researchers—led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins University—gathered data on more than 12,000 people in clusters of houses around Iraq, and tried to figure out how many people had died both before and after March of 2003. By comparing the pre- and post-invasion mortality rates, they figured out how many deaths could be attributed to the war, and then extrapolated from their sample to the country's entire population.
It's the same basic method used for political polls in America, which estimate the attitudes of millions of people by surveying 1,000 adults. The trick in a study like this is to make sure that you're looking at a random sample. If each of the Iraqi interviewees was picked at random, the researchers could make a very precise guess about the total mortality rate across the country. That would show up as a very small margin of error—and a narrow confidence interval around the estimate. The size of the confidence interval reflects their degree of certainty about their guess.
The Hopkins study gives a 95-percent confidence interval that ranges from about 400,000 to almost 950,000. (Click here for a primer on how to interpret these numbers.) Why is there so much uncertainty? The 12,801 Iraqis covered by the study weren't selected entirely at random. They were drawn from 1,849 households, which were themselves sampled in groups of 40—with researchers visiting 40 neighboring houses in each of several dozen locations around the country.
When the data points are clustered like this, the statistics become less precise. That's because you'd expect death rates to be similar for two people who happen to live next door to each other. If two of your subjects live near each other in a high-risk neighborhood in West Baghdad, the information they're giving you is somewhat redundant. It's just as if you had a smaller sample to begin with.
The clustering of data points adds some fuzziness to the results of a survey, but it doesn't have to produce a bias in one direction or another. If you correct for the clustering, all it does is widen the confidence interval. There's nothing unusual or unsound about this technique—international health researchers often resort to cluster samples when more-extensive canvassing proves too dangerous.
The results of a study like this could still be skewed if the clusters weren't carefully (that is to say, randomly) chosen. For example, you'd see an inflated death toll if the Hopkins researchers had unconsciously chosen more clusters from unsafe areas than from safe ones. The paper also points out that cluster selections were made on the basis of population data from several years ago, and that any significant migrations since then could have introduced some bias. (Click here to read about some other factors that might be relevant.)
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>>Source<<
The U.N. number I'll believe way before that fantastical number, although it sure does look impressive to throw around 600,000+ doesn't it? |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
That number has yet to be substantiated by a valid source as it's generated by a statistical method that's very questionable.
Here's a statistical primer for you on why that number is bunk.
>>Source<<
The U.N. number I'll believe way before that fantastical number, although it sure does look impressive to throw around 600,000+ doesn't it? |
In any case, Saddam Hussein didnt murder or order the killings of 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
Oh, and even if he did kill close to that number - the war in Iraq is far from over and only God knows how many more civilians will die by the end of the war. So can you please stop telling me crap and admit the real problem, that the American invasion is causing a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, much worse for Iraqis than before, much less security, more crime, bombings, murders ... for crying out loud, why are people so bloody ignorant and trying to downplay everything all the time? Where's the sense of urgency for Christ's sake? How many times do I have to restate my point???? This forum has been the same before, and its still full of junk. Some things never change, do they? |
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| Fir3start3r |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
In any case, Saddam Hussein didnt murder or order the killings of 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
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Really?
What are all the mass graves about then?
I don't know what's more tragic, the blind hatred of America or the total ignorance of Iraq under Saddam facts.
(I'll even hi-light the important stuff)
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Mass graves have been found in almost every major province. Some of them are group specific (one has been found to house Dawa party members and another one for Islamic Action Organization adherents). Some are age specific. Even the children were not spared. There is no need to go into detailed descriptions of the sites and relate stories of those lucky few who fled only to tell almost unbelievable tales. The real problem lies in the fact that such stories are becoming mundane and have lost their position as the number one news story, having been breaking news items just a few days after the war.
For a third of a century, the Shia people of Iraq have been suffering in the confines of their own Holy Land. They have been subject to the rule of the minority, namely the Sunnies. It is no secret that Saddam and his cohorts subscribe to the Sunni sect. On the outskirts of Tikrit is a little village named Al-Awjah (which not surprisingly translates as "The Twisted"), sparsely populated and neglected for hundreds of years by the rest of the province. Saddam was born precisely in that village in 1937 from a typical Sunni family.
We must endeavor to permanently imprint the memory of those killed by Saddam and his regime in the hearts and minds of generations to come in order to prevent such human catastrophes from being repeated.
It was Saddam's rise that paved the way for his venomous sectarian hatred to be materialized. The Shias were subjected to ethnic cleansing of an unsurpassed scale. For them the punishment for political crimes started with execution and ended with a lifetime of anguish under the brutal torture apparatus of Saddam's notorious penitentiaries. The list goes on to brutalities of detention without trial, torture, and as the west has now come to discover; mass executions and burials.
Official Iraqi documents recovered after the fall of Saddam regime suggest a staggering 5 million executions were made during Bath era alone. Over 10 million were also imprisoned. They were all Shias save a small percentage of Kurds. It is also very interesting to note that after the 1991 Shia uprising over 300,000 were killed or captured never to be seen again, but there were no injured. This is very odd considering the logical fact that wars result in many more injuries than deaths. Under Saddam, however, people were either killed instantly or killed in mass executions soon after. With slogans such as 'After today no more Shias' the army had advanced into the city of Karbala. The killed were killed, the captured were killed, and the injured were killed as well. No one was spared.
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>>Source<<
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Oh, and even if he did kill close to that number - the war in Iraq is far from over and only God knows how many more civilians will die by the end of the war. So can you please stop telling me crap and admit the real problem, that the American invasion is causing a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, much worse for Iraqis than before, much less security, more crime, bombings, murders ...
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Yes, with the removal of an all oppressive thumb, the people can now continue with their lives, be it good and bad.
Eventually it'll settle down and reach an equilibrium and yes, it's that time line that's the huge debate.
Actually, the debate is the reasoning of why we went in the first place (which really isn't much of a debate) but if we were presented with, and made aware of the "Bureaucracy of Repression" report from Human Rights Watch, there wouldn't have been much of a debate and there'd actually have be moral clarity in the first place.
>>Bureaucracy of Repression: The Iraqi Government in Its Own Words <<
It's a decision the Iraqis are going to have to answer for themselves, with assistance, until they can stabilize themselves.
They're going to have to struggle, as a country and get a grip.
They've had NO choice or freedom for 30 years! Give them a break already!
And we certainly can't just cut and run just leaving them to the wolves, that would be WORSE than being there and certainly your cries of another genocide would certainly then, unfortunately, come to fruition. :(
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for crying out loud, why are people so bloody ignorant and trying to downplay everything all the time? Where's the sense of urgency for Christ's sake? How many times do I have to restate my point???? This forum has been the same before, and its still full of junk.
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I already disclaimered myself when I stated:
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That still doesn't make it right however...
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So I wasn't being ignorant or downplaying Iraq's plight but feel free to ignore that...
All I'm saying is, if you're going to say fantastical things, be prepared to explain it; we're not simply going to take your word on it carte blanche (especially given some of your past posts...) just because it sounds good and everyone else says it.
Get some facts first, then argue.
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Some things never change, do they?[/COLOR]
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That's quite obvious... |
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| Marc Summers |
| My town has a little over 20k living in it. Poof. All gone, and then some. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
More Iraqis have died as a result of violence after American invasion than at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his criminal gang. By many accounts anywhere from 600,000 to 650,000 Iraqis civilians have died since the invasion of Iraq has began. |
how long have we been in Iraq? now try doing the math on that. |
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| Magnetonium |
It's hard to reason with you guys because not only you justify the current civilian deaths which are in hundreds of thousands (take the monthly death toll and multiply by the months of the war), but you throw in some phoney documents that Wikipedia won't even bulge to.
CURRENTLY the Iraqi population is 28 million, so you are saying that one in 5 people were killed by Saddam? How come then, he was only sentenced to hanging for ordering the killing of what is it, 148 people?
You guys make me sick, you oil hungry neo-cons. Hopefully one day you choke on all that oil. I feel dirty posting here surrounded by cowards who don't have any pity for the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians all because US government THOUGHT there were WMD. No sorries, no pullbacks, little rebuilding. all the ignorant s here, thats all I want to say. Thank you. Adios. |
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