The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently announced a study [PDF] of the mortality rate among civilians in Iraq during the three years following the US invasion of that country. Its authors report that:
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.
Naturally, the winger screech monkeys of the blogosphere are having a mass hissy fit at the thought that anyone would believe that Our Sainted President’s favorite war of aggression could actually have caused the deaths of civilians. I’ve picked one of these folks, the self-anointed “Gateway Pundit”, and have sent him a few questions about the screed he published earlier today:
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:10:01 -0400
From: “meatbrain@thinkingmeat.net” <meatbrain@thinkingmeat.net>
To: “Gateway Pundit”
Subject: Questions re: Lancet Study
Jim:I noted with interest your post today regarding the Lancet study on the death rate in Iraq since the US invaded that country. Your statements give rise to several questions, and I would be interested to see your answers.
1) Have you read the actual study itself?
2) You refer to the study as “an obvious fraud”. Why? What specific fraudulent actions do you accuse the authors of the study of perpetrating?
3) Do you claim that the authors of the study made any specific methodological flaws? If so, what were those flaws?
4) You state in your post that:
“This latest Lancet Study released today claims that 555,000 Iraqis have died in the last two years since their last controversial study! That comes to around 770 violent Iraqi deaths each day on average!!!”
Did the Lancet study claim that all excess deaths were due to violent causes?
5) How does calling Gilbert Burnham a “useful idiot” constitute a scientifically valid criticism of the study?
6) How does calling the study “politics” constitute a scientifically valid criticism of the study?
7) Do you have any scientifically valid criticisms of the study, or do ad hominem and straw man attacks constitute the whole of your objections to the study?
8) Why have you published Gilbert Burnham’s email address, if not to encourage email harrassment?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
—mb
I’ll update this post, should Jim attempt to provide serious answers to these questions. Personally, I am not going to hold my breath — as noted previously, the last thing a right-wing screech monkey wants is to get into a fact-based discussion. In the meantime, here’s what’s being said about the study in other quarters:
- A Newer World: Right-Wing Bloggers Try to Debunk Lancet Study – and Fail
- Juan Cole: 655,000 Dead in Iraq since Bush Invasion
- Dymaxion World: A Young Bloggers Primer on Intellectual Honesty
- Deltoid: Flypaper for innumerates
2 comments
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October 12th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Denny K
That comes to 600 people a day. Think someone might have noticed all those bodies piling up in the street if these numbers were accurate?
Another example of nonsense being accepted as fact.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
meatbrain
Why do you assume that “bodies [would be] piling up in the street”, Denny? Are you of the opinion that Iraqis do not bury their dead?
Do you have any substantive objections to the methodology of the survey? That is, can you raise an objection that does not depend upon your personal unwillingness to believe the results?