"Lancet study now censored because it shows a mass murder"

[G_j]

harsh assessment here..

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAS20051216&articleId=1491

The Crimes of U.S. ‘Democracy’

by Ghali Hassan

December 16, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

“How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say; 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops” – George W. Bush, 12 December 2005.


As the Occupation of Iraq is approaching three years, the mass murder of Iraqi civilians is not questioned, but normalised in Western conscience. President Bush reached the stage where he is able to make his own figure of Iraqi deaths, with no remorse or sadness. The war was not the result of “wrong intelligence”; the war was an illegal act of aggression, and a premeditated mass murder. ‘Democracy’ is used as a tool to manipulate the public and justify war crimes.

The most conservative estimate of Iraqi deaths was reported in October 2004 by a group of medical scientists from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Columbia University and Al-Mustansiriyah School of Medicine in Baghdad. The conservative estimate of more than 100,000 Iraqi deaths was published in the reputed and peer-reviewed British medical journal the Lancet. If one includes the atrocities in Fallujah, Ramadi, al-Qaim, Tel Afar, Hillah, Baghdad and the daily mayhem instigated by U.S. forces and their collaborators, the number of Iraqis killed since March 2003 would be in the 200,000 mark or even more. It also estimated that 85 per cent of all violent deaths are by “coalition forces” and that many of these are due to U.S. aerial bombardments. The majority of the victims were innocent women and children.

According to Robert Fisk of the Independent; “The Ministry of Health figures in July alone, was 1,100 Iraqi deaths in Baghdad alone. If you spread that across, Mosul, Kirkuk, maybe Irbil , all way down to Basra , through the months, and you must be talking of 3,000 to 4,000 a month. That's 36,000 to 48,000 a year”. This makes the “100,000 figure of rightly as being quite conservative”, added Fisk. This figure has been recently substantiated.

However, the Lancet study was deliberately ignored or dismissed by the U.S.-British corporate mass media. In fact the study is now censored by mainstream media because it shows a mass murder. The media and Western elites roles have always been to selectively describe crimes allegedly – never proven – committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein as “mass murder”, while dismissing crimes committed by Western powers.


..more..

[alfredo]

1. Our executioner in chief would never

do something like covering up the true number of deaths.

[EFerrari]

2. The last time I saw Fisk on CSPAN, he was so angry.

:kick:

[leftchick]

18. I have never seen him on Cspan

I need to check their archives, I would love to see him.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. The guy who did the Lancet study is the same guy, using the same methods,

who did the DR Congo study that found 3,000,000 had died over a decade of civil war. The later figure has been cited by Bush & Blair et al without anyone ever questioning it.

[Cults4Bush]

4. Very nice piece of info there, thank you.

Things like that are why I try and read entire threads.

[G_j]

17. just as they used an Amnesty Int. report when selling the war

when Amnesty criticized the US, they were a bunch of wackos.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

19. Exactly. Fucking hypocrites, the lot of them. nt

[EFerrari]

5. kick

:kick:

[StellaBlue]

6. I lived in the UK until June and this was all over the place there...

from the moment it came out. And people took the Lancet seriously, as they should.

WHY IS NO ONE CALLING HIM ON THIS? (yes, that's a rhetorical question)

[G_j]

8. FAIR Media Advisory: Counting Iraqi Casualties, Why didn't the press ask?

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2778


Media Advisory

Counting Iraqi Casualties
Why didn't the press ask?

12/16/05

Throughout the Iraq War, the mainstream media have shown little interest in documenting or quantifying the suffering of Iraqis. But a recent comment by George W. Bush provoked an unexpected round of discussion of the topic.

At the close of a public event on December 12, Bush took questions from the audience. And the very first question was unusually direct:

"I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis, I include civilians, military police, insurgents, translators."

Bush's response: "How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."

Suddenly, major newspapers and broadcast outlets were engaged in an unexpected discussion about the human toll of the war for Iraqis. Reporters began to cite Iraq Body Count's tally of civilian deaths as a possible source for Bush's claim (USA Today, 12/14/05; CNN, 12/12/05).

Often overlooked was the fact that Iraq Body Count's research is limited to civilian deaths--not including insurgents or security forces, as asked by the questioner--and only those civilian deaths that were reported by the media. The resulting total, as the group acknowledges on its website, is therefore a low estimate: "It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media."

A more scientific survey of total civilian deaths in Iraq that was published in the British medical journal The Lancet (10/29/04) suggested a much higher death toll of 100,000. But as FAIR pointed out in a March 21, 2005 Action Alert, media discussions of Iraqi casualties have tended to avoid or dismiss that higher estimate. The Lancet study was largely ignored by the mainstream press when it was released (This American Life, 10/28/05) and remains largely outside the realm of discussion a year later.

Some in the media seemed eager to congratulate Bush for even addressing the issue. On NPR's Morning Edition (12/13/05), Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said, "I give Mr. Bush credit for having given some information, and it shows that he's conscious of this very human toll of the war, so I think it was a good thing that he responded."

ABC reporter Claire Shipman (12/13/05) was also impressed, acknowledging that while "getting specific like that about extremely murky casualty figures can be a no-win political proposition," it could prove beneficial to Bush: "Now some have suggested it's a healthy sign that the president was so willing to get specific about the number of Iraqi dead, that it shows how closely he's following the cost of the war." Shipman went on to add: "So far, civilian casualties in Iraq don't at all approach those of the other big wars of the last century."

But the most interesting and perhaps obvious aspect of this incident has gone largely untouched: Why haven't reporters asked Bush this question yet? White House spokesman Scott McLellan has rarely had to answer questions about Iraqi deaths during his regular press briefings (a few exceptions have come from syndicated columnist Helen Thomas and progressive journalist Russell Mokhiber).

As media reports have suggested, the White House is not eager to talk about the deaths caused by its Iraq policy. But neither, it seems, is the press corps.

~~

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. I think the Press knows and is deliberately helping the Bush Admin bury

the numbers like they've helped it bury so much else. Our "free press" is owned by Bush cronies and is controlled to advance their corrupt interests.

[Up2Late]

22. If you want to know what happened and how it was done, listen to this...

...The guy who did the study was interviewed on the Chicago Public Radio show "This American Life" a few months ago and told the story.

PLUS: They also interviewed one of the guys who did the targeting for the Pentagon, and then, almost the next day, when to work for Human Rights Watch. His name is Marc Garlasco.

If you want to read a show rundown, click the link below, then goto the show indicated below:

<http://www.thislife.org/pages/archives/archive05.html>

What's in a Number?
10/28 (2005)
Episode 300

Here's the RealAudio link: <http://www.thislife.org/ra/300.ram>

[aquart]

7. Now can we call him the Butcher of Baghdad?

[Clara T]

9. Burying the Lancet report . . . and the children

Burying the Lancet report . . . and the children

By Nicolas J S Davies
Online Journal Contributing Writer

After excluding the results from Anbar province as a statistical anomaly and half the increase in infant mortality as possible "recall bias," they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading cause of death in Iraq during that period (51 percent or 24 percent with or without Anbar). However, their most significant finding was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by "coalition" forces using "helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry," and that almost half (48 percent) of these were children, with a median age of eight.

<snip>

...aerial bombardment was largely responsible for the higher numbers of deaths caused by the "coalition." The overall breakdown (72 percent U.S.) is remarkably close to that attributed to aerial bombardment in the Lancet survey (79 percent).

<snip>

The figures most often cited for civilian casualties in Iraq are those collected by Iraqbodycount, but its figures are not intended as an estimate of total casualties. Its methodology is to count only those deaths that are reported by at least two "reputable" international media outlets in order to generate a minimum number that is more or less indisputable.

<snip>

Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet report, there is one genuine issue that really does cast doubt on its findings. This is the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in November 2004). Roberts wrote in a letter to the Independent, "Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000."

<snip>

Allowing for an additional 14 months of the air war and other violence since the publication of the Lancet report, we can now estimate that somewhere between 175,000 and 650,000 people have died as a direct result of the war; that 120,000 to 500,000 of them have been killed by "coalition" forces, and that 50,000 to 250,000 of these were children below the age of fifteen.


More Info Here:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_333.sht...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5611142

[G_j]

10. very good article

At first they tried to discredit the Lancet study. When they realized they couldn't do that, they censored it.

What Lancet study??

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. The numbers are damning. Here is an ***IMAGE*** TO ACCOMPANY THEM:

"Allowing for an additional 14 months of the air war and other violence since the publication of the Lancet report, we can now estimate that somewhere between 175,000 and 650,000 people have died as a direct result of the war; that 120,000 to 500,000 of them have been killed by "coalition" forces, and that 50,000 to 250,000 of these were children below the age of fifteen."

http://www.allhatnocattle.net.nyud.net:8090/usa_WAR.jpg

All the more appropriate since apparently napalm has been used in Iraq. In the famous original photo (by Nick Ut) of that fleeing Vietnamese girl, she had shed her burning clothing.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x135363

Thread title: "Incinerating Iraqis: The napalm cover up"

The horror of war has always been a dark inspiration for artists - who can forget Goya's images or Picasso's "Guernica"?

Artist web site here: http://www.coolon.net

[Nothing Without Hope]

11. K & R. Project Censored needs to know about this, if they don't already.

:kick:

[G_j]

12. kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. kick - I've emailed Project Censored about this n/t

[bonito]

16. Kick, can't comment because it makes me sick

Peace, well, I can always say that.

[lakeguy]

20. amazing how bush gets another pass on another lie

by the "liberal" media. i am so freakin tired of this shit!~

[Up2Late]

21. What the hell are they talking about it?!?The study is now censored...

...by mainstream media? It still at the Lancet site, and still has the same data.

How do I know, I just looked at it, you just have to register for The Lancet site, that's all.

Here's the link to the pdf files:

<http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/0140-6736/PIIS0140673604174412.pdf>

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. Rather than "censored" in the usual sense it is a MEDIA BLACKOUT

of an important study that directly contradicts frequent, repeated lies by the Bush Administration. This amounts to censorship because the lies about Iraqi killings are allowed to stand unchallenged by the compliant US press.

Almost no one will see the Lancet article except researchers and medical doctors with a subscription. The data are being buried and are invisible to the public.

[Up2Late]

24. The Study is over a year old and anyone who wants to read it can,

That's not censored!

Plus, it had a VERY Large "Confidence Interval." What that means is explained in the radio show I linked below, but basically what that means is this: Let's say the poll is for an election and the poll says one candidate will win with 55%, but has a Confidence Interval of 6%.

That means the actual result could be 58% to as low as 52%.

With this study, 100,000 Dead was the middle number, but with the Confidence interval the actual number could have been as low as 8000, and as High as 190,000 dead.

You should listen to the Radio interview that I posted a link to in a post above from "This American Life," I'm not going to repeat what I wrote above, but here's the show rundown and link:

<http://www.thislife.org/>

Here's the RealAudio link
<http://www.thislife.org/ra/300.ram>

What's in a Number?
10/28 (2005)
Episode 300

About a year ago, a study estimated the number of Iraqi
casualties since the war began. It came up with a
number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than any other
estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week,
Alex Blumberg revisits that study to look at the reality
behind it. In Act One he reports that not only is the
study probably accurate, but it says that most of the
deaths were caused by Coalition forces (despite concerted
efforts to avoid civilian casualties). In Act Two, we
hear U.S. forces trying to cope in the aftermath of some
of those deaths.

Prologue. We're a nation at war, but it hardly feels like it.
That contrast is especially jarring for people like Hannah Allam,
who just returned home to Oklahoma after two years in Baghdad
running the Knight-Ridder Newspapers bureau there. Ira talks
with Hannah, and Army Captain Chuck Ziegenfuss about what it
feels like to come home from a war that nobody's paying much attention to. (6 minutes)

Act One. Truth, Damn Truth, and Statistics. About a year ago,
a John Hopkins University study in the British medical journal
The Lancet estimated the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.
It came up with a number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than
any other estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week, Producer
Alex Blumberg tells the remarkable story of what it took to
find that number, why we should find it credible and why almost
no one believed it.
(The original Lancet study is online; free registration is required). (36 minutes)

Act Two. Not Just a Number. Captain Ryan Gist was given a
particularly tough assignment in Iraq: to build relationships
with a town where U.S. bombs had killed twelve innocent
people. But first he has to apologize to the families of those
who were killed. We hear the apology, captured on tape by
a journalist working in Iraq, and talk to Captain Gist about
what things have been like since. (10 minutes)

Act Three. What do we do with these numbers anyway? So if in
fact 100,000 Iraqis died because of the war, and that number's
a year old ... what do we do with that number? It instantly
brings you to all these imponderable questions about what's
worth 100,000 dead. In a way, this doesn't seem like a helpful
question to think about. So Ira turns to Nancy Sherman, who
writes about the military and its values. She's a Professor
of Philosophy at Georgetown University and was the= Distinguished
Chair of Ethics at the U.S. Navy Academy. She also wrote
Stoic Warriors. (3 minutes)
Song: "Somebody's Gotta Do It," The Roots

[rman]

26. How can you want to read it you don't know it's there?

Most people don't have the time to read all the news that's out there, nor to be their own investigative reporter.

[rman]

25. the link you provided goes nowhere

"Page not found"

[Up2Late]

27. Sorry, I thought maybe it could get around the having to register...

...deal, some folks here don't like to give out that info (Although it only asks for your Last name and e-mail address)

Here's the link to The Lancet study, Yes, you will have to register (but it's free) with The Lancet Website: <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673604174412/fulltext>

Once registered, if you go to the bottom of the study, you can download the pdf version, which is easier to read and print.

Once registered and logged in, this link should work, which takes you to the summery of the report:

<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673604174412/abstract>