U.S. media turn away from 655,000 dead

U.S. media turn away from 655,000 dead
Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher (Oct 17)

Deaths in Iraq Would it surprise you to learn that if the Johns Hopkins
estimates of 400,000 to 800,000 deaths are correct -- and many experts
in the survey field seem to suggest they probably are -- that the
supposedly not-yet-civil-war in Iraq has already cost more lives, per
capita, than our own Civil War (one in 40 of all Iraqis alive in 2003)?
And that these losses are comparable to what some European nations
suffered in World War II? You'd never know it from mainstream press
coverage in the U.S.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson commented a few days ago: "If
the study's findings are flawed, then its critics should demonstrate
how and why. But no one should dismiss these shocking numbers without
fully examining them. No one should want to." No one should want to,
but many seem to be doing just that.

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, told the
Washington Post the survey method was "tried and true." He said that
"this is the best estimate of mortality we have." Frank Harrell Jr.,
chairman of the biostatistics department at Vanderbilt University, told
the Associated Press the study incorporated "rigorous, well-justified
analysis" of the data. Other death counts have been based on media or
government reports, not door-to-door surveys.

"I loved when President Bush said 'their methodology has been pretty
well discredited,'" Richard Garfield, a public health professor at
Columbia University who works closely with a number of the authors of
the report, told the Christian Science Monitor. "That's exactly wrong.
There is no discrediting of this methodology. I don't think there's
anyone who's been involved in mortality research who thinks there's a
better way to do it in unsecured areas. I have never heard of any
argument in this field that says there's a better way to do it."

Critics of the survey -- from the president all the way down to
National Review Online -- have continually cited the much lower number
numbers gathered from press accounts and mortuaries, which is known as
"passive surveillance." The Johns Hopkins study notes: "Aside from
Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance
recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based
methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by
facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more
when compared with population-based estimates. Between 1960 and 1990,
newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported
over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years
of highest violence."

Yet Richard Nadler, writing at National Review Online, complained that
"the Hopkins researchers don't record 655,000 extra casualties -- they
extrapolate them." Nadler, I'd bet, rarely attacks the validity of U.S.
opinion polls which base their findings on interviews with about 1,000
Americans - in a country of 300 million.

Above is an excerpt - see the whole article at:
http://snipurl.com/zxwy
or
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id
03255073
=================
Johns Hopkins Study: Over 600,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the
U.S. invasion
Neil King Jr.,
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com
===================

Here are some good sources for news
(that are typically NOT  hogwash outlets like the major US networks)

http://AlterNet.org
http://Anti-War.com
http://caracasnews.com
http://www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.DemocracyNow.org
http://www.futurenet.org
http://www.gregpalast.com
http://www.independent.co.uk
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
http://www.truthdig.com
http://www.truthout.org

==========================================

In case you missed it...

Something is Terribly Wrong With the USA- 7 Minute Video

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14615.htm

consists of some scenes from the movie V For Vendetta.
great food for thought
pass it around!

================================================
Facts You Might Not Know about the Iraq War

The original terrorists in Iraq were the military and civilian
officials of the Bush administration -- starting with their "shock and
awe" bombing campaign that destroyed Iraqi infrastructure in order to
"undermine civilian morale." The American form of terrorism continued
with the wholesale destruction of most of Falluja and parts of other
Sunni cities, designed to pacify the "hot beds" of insurgency, while
teaching the residents of those areas that, if they "harbor the
insurgents," they will surely "suffer the consequences."

At the individual level, this program of terror was continued through
the invasions of, and demolishing of, homes (or, in some cases, parts
of neighborhoods) where insurgents were believed to be hidden among a
larger civilian population, thus spreading the "lesson" about
"harboring terrorists" to everyone in the Sunni sections of the
country. Generating a violent death rate of at least 18,000 per year,
the American drumbeat of terror has contributed more than its share to
the recently escalating civilian death toll, which reached a record
3,149 in the official count during July. It is unfortunately accurate
to characterize the American occupation of Sunni Iraq as a reign of
terror.
===========
from:
http://www.TomDispatch.com/
7 Facts You Might Not Know about the Iraq War
by Michael Schwartz

==============================

Feel free to copy and spread this around... the American people can't
be expected to act intelligently until they know the truth about the
war criminals in the white house and pentagon.

===============================

WAR PICTURES

Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo-American
Aggression in Iraq

These photos are only of a very tiny fraction of the thousands of Iraqi
Civilian Victims who have been terrorised, humiliated, injured, maimed
and killed through British and American bombing of civilian areas in
various cities of Iraq. Due to insecurity, independent reporters could
not and still can not reach many areas to photograph and report the
atrocities. Several independent reporters and journalists were
deliberately bombed to prevent them reporting the atrocities.

Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small
children and those who have weak hearts.

Robert Fisk:
http://snipurl.com/h6tm

Mind Prod:
http://snipurl.com/h6tp
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------

"...With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of
sliding
into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if
we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we
persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to
deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our
understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current
predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not
admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The
strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and
correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.

Excerpted from the  Wall Street Journal Tuesday, August 15, 2006
"A Self-Defeating War"  By George Soros

==================

"The time for war has past."
The World Teacher
http://www.Share-International.org

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http://Anti-War.com/
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