Today's
Stories
January 9,
2006
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
Dec. 31 / Jan.
1, 2005/6
Patrick Cockburn
The
Year in Iraq
Alexander Cockburn
Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005
Ralph Nader
Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers
James Petras
The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation"
in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians
Peter Montague
A Darker Bioweapons Future
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South
Vijay Prashad
My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans
P. Sainath
Farm Suicides in Vidharbha
James Brooks
The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable
Eileen E. Schell
The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the
Land of Reality TV
Christopher
Brauchli
Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad
Jo Guldi
Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity
Fred Gardner
America's Only Legal Grower
Ben Tripp
A Hapless New Year
St. Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear
Dog
Website of
the Weekend
Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy
December 30,2005
Evo Morales
I
Believe Only in the Power of the People
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
The
Toxic Air in Black America
Dave Lindorff
Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security
Gary Leupp
Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks
Ron Jacobs
A
Dead New Year's Eve
Brian Concannon
Down
in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Sandra Lucas
Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients
T.W. Croft
The
Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard
Times for the Big Easy
Website of
the Day
Images
of Mass Consumption
December 29,
2005
Norman Solomon
Journalists
Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Missy Comley
Beattie
Christmas
Without Chase
Dave Zirin
Over the Edge: the Year in Sports
Kevin Zeese
Top
10 Antiwar Stories of 2005
Derrick O'Keefe
Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism
Sam Bahour
Turning the Page in Palestine, Again
Macdonald Stainsby
What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush?
Bill &
Kathleen Christison
Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran
Website of the Day
Deconstructing the Democrats
December 28,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Lila Rajiva
Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India
Amira Hass
The Humanitarian Lie
Joshua Frank
Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan
David Swanson
Leaking Top Secret Lies
Richard Thieme
High Time for Torture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Three
Books to Wake You Up
Website of the Day
Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
Uri Avnery
The Peretz Shuffle
Mike Whitney
Pop Goes the Bubble!
Gideon Levy
Dusty Trail to Death
David Swanson
Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country
Norman Solomon
NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
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January
9, 2006
30,000? No. 100,000? No.
How Many Iraqis Have
Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
By ANDREW COCKBURN
President Bush's off-hand summation
last month of the number of Iraqis who have so far died as a
result of our invasion and occupation as "30,000, more or
less" was quite certainly an under-estimate. The true number
is probably hitting around 180,000 by now, with a possibility,
as we shall see, that it has reached as high as half a million.
But even Bush's number was
too much for his handlers to allow. Almost as soon as he finished
speaking, they hastened to downplay the presidential figure as
"unofficial", plucked by the commander in chief from
"public estimates". Such calculations have been discouraged
ever since the oafish General Tommy Franks infamously announced
at the time of the invasion: "We don't do body counts".
In December 2004, an effort by the Iraqi Ministry of Health
to quantify ongoing mortality on the basis of emergency room
admissions was halted by direct order of the occupying power.
In fact, the President may
have been subconsciously quoting figures published by iraqbodycount.org,
a British group that diligently tabulates published press reports
of combat-related killings in Iraq. Due to IBC's policy of posting
minimum and maximum figures, currently standing at 27787 and
31317, their numbers carry a misleading air of scientific precision.
As the group itself readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete,
since it omits unreported deaths.
There is however another and
more reliable method for estimating figures such as these: nationwide
random sampling. No one doubts that, if the sample is truly
random, and the consequent data correctly calculated, the sampled
results reflect the national figures within the states accuracy.
That, after all, is how market researchers assess public opinion
on everything from politicians to breakfast cereals. Epidemiologists
use it to chart the impact of epidemics. In 2000 an epidemiological
team led by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
used random sampling to calculate the death toll from combat
and consequent disease and starvation in the ongoing Congolese
civil war at 1.7 million. This figure prompted shocked headlines
and immediate action by the UN Security Council. No one questioned
the methodology.
In September 2004, Roberts
led a similar team that researched death rates, using the same
techniques, in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. Making
"conservative assumptions" they concluded that "about
100,000 excess deaths" (in fact 98,000) among men, women,
and children had occurred in just under eighteen months. Violent
deaths alone had soared twentyfold. But, as in most wars, the
bulk of the carnage was due to the indirect effects of the invasion,
notably the breakdown of the Iraqi health system. Thus, though
many commentators contrasted the iarqbodycount and Johns Hopkins
figures, they are not comparable. The bodycounters were simply
recording, or at least attempting to record, deaths from combat
violence, while the medical specialists were attempting something
far more complete, an accounting of the full death toll wrought
by the devastation of the US invasion and occupation.
Unlike the respectful applause
granted the Congolese study, this one, published in the prestigious
British medical journal The Lancet, generated a hail of abusive
criticism. The general outrage may have been prompted by the
unsettling possibility that Iraq's liberators had already killed
a third as many Iraqis as the reported 300,000 murdered by Saddam
Hussein in his decades of tyranny. Some of the attacks were self-evidently
absurd. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman, for example,
queried the survey because it "appeared to be based on
an extrapolation technique rather than a detailed body count",
as if Blair had never made a political decision based on a poll.
Others chose to compare apples with oranges by mixing up nationwide
Saddam-era government statistics with individual cluster survey
results in order to cast doubt on the latter.
Some questioned whether the
sample was distorted by unrepresentative hot spots such as Fallujah.
In fact, the amazingly dedicated and courageous Iraqi doctors
who actually gathered the data visited 33 "clusters"
selected on an entirely random basis across the length and breadth
of Iraq. In each of these clusters the teams conducted interviews
in 30 households, again selected by rigorously random means.
As it happened, Fallujah was one of the clusters thrown up by
this process. Strictly speaking, the team should have included
the data from that embattled city in their final result - random
is random after all -- which would have given an overall post-invasion
excess death figure of no less than 268,000. Nevertheless,
erring on the side of caution, they eliminated Fallujah from
their sample.
For such dedication to scholarly
integrity, Roberts and his colleagues had to endure the flatulent
ignorance of Michael E. O'Hanlon, sage of the Brookings Institute,
who told the New York Times that the self-evidently deficient
Iraqbodycount estimate was "certainly a more serious work
than the Lancet report".
No point in the study attracted
more confident assaults by ersatz statisticians than the study's
passing mention of a 95 per cent "confidence interval"
for the overall death toll of between 194,000 and 8,000. This
did not mean, as asserted by commentators who ought to have known
better, that the true figure lay anywhere between those numbers
and that the 98,000 number was produced merely by splitting the
difference. In fact, the 98,000 figure represents the best estimate
drawn from the data. The high and low numbers represented the
spread, known to statisticians as "the confidence interval",
within which it is 95 per cent certain the true number will
be found. Had the published study (which was intensively peer
reviewed) cited the 80 per cent confidence interval also calculated
by the team - a statistically respectable option -- then the
spread would have been between 152,000 and 44,000.
Seeking further elucidation
on the mathematical tools available to reveal the hidden miseries
of today's Iraq, I turned to CounterPunch's consultant statistician,
Pierre Sprey. He reviewed not only the Iraq study as published
in the Lancet, but also the raw data collected in the household
survey and kindly forwarded me by Dr. Roberts.
"I have the highest respect
for the rigor of the sampling method used and the meticulous
and courageous collection of the data. I'm certainly not criticizing
in any way Robert's data or the importance of the results.
But they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble had they
discarded the straitjacket of Gaussian distribution in favor
of a more practical statistical approach", says Sprey.
"As with all such studies, the key question is that of 'scatter'
i.e. the random spread in data between each cluster sampled.
So cluster A might have a ratio of twice as many deaths after
the invasion as before, while cluster B might experience only
two thirds as many. The academically conventional approach is
to assume that scatter follows the bell shaped curve, otherwise
known as 'normal distribution,' popularized by Carl Gauss in
the early 19th century. This is a formula dictating that the
most frequent occurrence of data will be close to the mean, or
center, and that frequency of occurrence will fall off smoothly
and symmetrically as data scatters further and further from the
mean - following the curve of a bell shaped mountain as you move
from the center of the data.
"Generations of statisticians
have had it beaten in to their skulls that any data that scatters
does so according to the iron dictates of the bell shaped curve.
The truth is that in no case has a sizable body of naturally
occurring data ever been proven to follow the curve". (A
$200,000 prize offered in the 1920s for anyone who could provide
rigorous evidence of a natural occurrence of the curve remains
unclaimed.)
"Slavish adherence to
this formula obscures information of great value. The true shape
of the data scatter almost invariably contains insights of great
physical or, in this case medical importance. In particular
it very frequently grossly exaggerates the true scatter of the
data. Why? Simply because the mathematics of making the data
fit the bell curve inexorably leads one to placing huge emphasis
on isolated extreme 'outliers' of the data.
"For example if the average
cluster had ten deaths and most clusters had 8 to 12 deaths,
but some had 0 or 20, the Gaussian math would force you to weight
the importance of those rare points like 0 or 20 (i.e. 'outliers')
by the square of their distance from the center, or average.
So a point at 20 would have a weight of 100 (20 minus 10 squared)
while a point of 11 would have a weight of 1 (11 minus 10 squared.)
"This approach has inherently
pernicious effects. Suppose for example one is studying survival
rates of plant- destroying spider mites, and the sampled population
happens to be a mix of a strain of very hardy mites and another
strain that is quite vulnerable to pesticides. Fanatical Gaussians
will immediately clamp the bell shaped curve onto the overall
population of mites being studied, thereby wiping out any evidence
that this group is in fact a mixture of two strains.
"The commonsensical amateur
meanwhile would look at the scatter of the data and see very
quickly that instead of a single "peak" in surviving
mites, which would be the result if the data were processed by
traditional Gaussian rules, there are instead two obvious peaks.
He would promptly discern that he has two different strains
mixed together on his plants, a conclusion of overwhelming importance
for pesticide application".
(Sprey once conducted such
a statistical study at Cornell - a bad day for mites.)
So how to escape the Gaussian
distortion?
"The answer lies in quite
simple statistical techniques called 'distribution free' or 'non
parametric' methods. These make the obviously more reasonable
assumption that one hasn't the foggiest notion of what the distribution
of the data should be, especially when considering data one hasn't
seen -- before one is prepared to let the data define its own
distribution, whatever that unusual shape may be, rather than
forcing it into the bell curve. The relatively simple computational
methods used in this approach basically treat each point as if
it has the same weight as any other, with the happy result that
outliers don't greatly exaggerate the scatter.
"So, applying that simple
notion to the death rates before and after the US invasion of
Iraq, we find that the confidence intervals around the estimated
100,000 "excess deaths" not only shrink considerably
but also that the numbers move significantly higher. With a
distribution-free approach, a 95 per cent confidence interval
thereby becomes 53,000 to 279,000. (Recall that the Gaussian
approach gave a 95 per cent confidence interval of 8,000 to
194,000.) With an 80 per cent confidence interval, the lower
bound is 78,000 and the upper bound is 229,000. This shift
to higher excess deaths occurs because the real, as opposed to
the Gaussian, distribution of the data is heavily skewed to the
high side of the distribution center".
Sprey's results make it clear
that the most cautious estimate possible for the Iraqi excess
deaths caused by the US invasion is far higher than the 8,000
figure imposed on the Johns Hopkins team by the fascist bell
curve. (The eugenicists of the 1920s were much enamored of Gaussian
methodology.) The upper bounds indicate a reasonable possibility
of much higher excess deaths than the 194,000 excess deaths (95
per cent confidence) offered in the study published in the Lancet.
Of course the survey on which
all these figures are based was conducted fifteen months ago.
Assuming the rate of death has proceeded at the same pace since
the study was carried out, Sprey calculates that deaths inflicted
to date as a direct result of the Anglo-American invasion and
occupation of Iraq could be, at best estimate, 183,000, with
an upper 95 per cent confidence boundary of 511,000.
Given the generally smug and
heartless reaction accorded the initial Lancet study, no such
updated figure is likely to resonate in public discourse, especially
when it registers a dramatic increase. Though the figures quoted
by Bush were without a shadow of a doubt a gross underestimate
(he couldn't even be bothered to get the number of dead American
troops right) 30,000 dead among the people we were allegedly
coming to save is still an appalling notion. The possibility
that we have actually helped kill as many as half a million people
suggests a war crime of truly twentieth century proportions.
In some countries, denying
the fact of mass murder is considered a felony offence, incurring
harsh penalties. But then, it all depends on who is being murdered,
and by whom.
Andrew Cockburn is the co-author, with Patrick Cockburn,
of Out
of the Ashes: the Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.
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