Thanks for lending a hand, Mary. And welcome to the site.

Welcome!

Of course I guess I'm not the best person to say welcome, since this is only my second post to this fine site.

But like you I find it saddening that Beinart's call to arms is not gaining greater traction in the Democratic party. While it is definitely possible to oppose Bush on a number of issues, his foreign policy actually owes more to the great liberal leaders of the past than conservative intellectuals.

Our current aggressive stance isn't truly conservative or liberal, but at least to me, embodies some of the best features of both-idealism and a belief in the transforming power of liberty, combined with a stern willingness to pay the costs associated with creating that transformation.

Truly, what in Bush's speech last week could not have been uttered by Clinton, who often sent American forces into harm's way for humanitarian reasons? I've long believed that Clinton's problem in foreign policy problems had less to do with his instincts, which seemed mostly right, than with his guts. He wasn't willing to pay the price to get things done.

Late to the party,but a very warm welcome.Based upon this posting,I will very much enjoy your insightful contributions to the commentary here.
It has long been my contention that the Democratic Party cannot come back from its self-imposed lunacy.
I have no partisan ax to grind,and being an inmate in the national asylum to your North,I cannot even choose a Party in the US.I just feel that the Party reached a 'tipping point'some time ago and now has very little control of its future direction which is DOWN.
This is not a bad thing.Parties die,because their raison d'etre is gone and the conditions that encouraged them have altered.That does not mean that there will be no opposition,It merely means that there will be a different opposition.It simply won't be this collection of effete,decadent,nihilists.

A question for the liberal hawks.

Is their a point or certain number of Iraqi civilian deaths that would change your mind about the Iraq war? 200,000? 500,000? 1 million? 5 million? We are estimated at 100,000 now.

Is it odd that a magazine written for the transnational progressive crowd is called the Nation?

We are estimated at 100,000 now--Drydock

Even though I am not a 'liberal-hawk',a species that I find tends towards lack of RESOLVE when the going gets tough,allow me to reply.
Sources please.And a great many of those deaths are caused by the murderous scumbags we are currently trying to terminate with extreme prejudice.Which is irrelevent to the point that you could make the same argument about EVERY conflict.
How high is up?

“I hope these letters to the editor don’t express the opinions typical of centrist Democrats. But I wonder. After all, this is TNR, not The Nation.”

There is a good possibility that these letter writers are not regular readers of TNR (I am a paying subscriber). They could be part of an organized campaign to rebuke Peter Beinart and his publication. And if this is indeed the case---then you should really be worried! It provides evidence that the far Left is able to quickly round up people to their bidding; they know how to work the system.

Do these folks represent 10%, 30%, or 50% of the Democratic Party? I can only guess. But this we know for sure: they are sufficiently organized to force the Democratic Party to provide a presidential candidate which will be minimally half way acceptable to them. In other words, there is zero chance of a Joseph Libermann or another “pro-war” candidate becoming that party’s presidential nominee. What about the US Senate, House of Representatives, or state wide races? The Democratic Party remains very viable in these particular circumstances. My remarks are limited strictly to the race for the presidency.

source: Lancet medical journal from Britain. Maybe its accurate or maybe its not.

Lets assume its inaccurate. Lets also assume that the Iraqi insurgents (or scumbags) are responible for a large percentage of the civilian deaths (though I'm skeptical about that). My question still stands: is their a point where the level of blood spilled outweighs possible humanitaran/democratic ends.

Rhetorically speaking-- is their a point-- where destroying the village in order to save it-- could happen in this situation?

Have you got big tits?

Welcome. First of all, I don't know if you have the power to ban people or not, but if I were you I'd start out by banning Tom, the rude individual who left the above comment.

Second. The Democratic party started on a long downward slope towards moral bankrupcy some very many decades ago. Any clear-thinking person with even the slightest shred of honesty or dignity would have already jumped ship by now.

Tom is banned.

drydock: sorry but it is "there" not "their". don't mean to offend nor insult, that sort of thing just bugs me.

anyway, of course there is a point when the cost - in human lives or otherwise - outweigh the benefits, but you cannot simply identify a cost, absent a benefit, and expect an answer. those that presently support the war in iraq believe that more people (25 million Iraqis, 300 million Americans, whatever number of those targeted by terrorists) benefit than have lost their lives.

so, sure, there is a number but it has not, in the minds of most people, been reached.

for you i suspect the number is very low and has already been passed. for some the number, i'm sure, is zero.

Rhetorically speaking-- is their a point-- where destroying the village in order to save it-- could happen in this situation?--Drydock

This is actually a valid point,and I believe that these issues should be discussed in a sensible,honourable manner.The problem,in having a debate,on substantive issues, is twofold:
A.The 'leftist'absolutist(and clueless) position on the War,has so poisoned the arena,that every position and every facet has become 'politicised'.Instead of a discussion on the cost/benefit of any particular action,which is what you appear to be requesting,we start out from a position of "BUSH LIED / PEOPLE DIED",which means that every detail then goes merely into supporting a pre-ordained conclusion.Why bother?
B.The 'goals'of the Iraqi campaign are essentially 'existential'.The end result we want is a functioning(and illustrative), Arab quasi-liberal(but obviously Islamic influenced) democracy,where the majority will is moderated by respect for minority rights,and the PEOPLE,not the local tyrant or mullah,are the directors of the state.This will not happen next week,next month,or next year.It might be a decade or more before we know whether this grand attempt to prevent future terror,will have the desired affect.You can't calculate cost/benefit when you don't know either the exact costs or benefits.
If we had to destroy ALL of Iraq to prevail,that would be clearly be BAD.If we have to destroy 5% of the die-hard Sunni population,so that EVERYONE else can progress,that is an entirely different matter.
I don't have the answers,and nor does anyone else.The future is unknowable,but the present state of affairs in the ME is intolerable.Until someone comes up with a viable alternative to what GWB is doing,I am content to keep on trucking.

Thanks for the welcoming comments! *

Before the election, it seemed that center-left Democrats had more in common with center-right conservatives. Of course, everything got polarized by the election, but Beinert’s article seemed to be an acknowledgement that moderates shared the same values.

These letters to the editor were not moderate. I hope David Thomson is right – those letter-writers might not be regular readers. As MoveOn and Kos prove, the extremists are pretty good at influencing the Democrats.

(*Kay’s right, trolls must be banned - especially the dull ones)

That Lancet estimate of 100,000 was debunked back in October when it first came out. Sorry I don't have links, but I remember that the figure was based on unverifiable anecdotes which were then extrapolated upwards in such a manner as to reach the highest number possible. This came out shortly before the election, "rushed into print" is the phrase I remember hearing, and it was sad that the Lancet should have joined other citizens of the UK who attempted to interfere with the American election.

Also, having been a longtime subscriber to TNR, during the election season of 2004 it seemed to me that they lost their heads a bit in a partisan manner while deploring John Kerry at the same time.

Tom is banned

That was a fast troll thwacking. Thanks MJT.

Letters to the Editor are most frequently written by people who have something to add, or by those who disagree strongly. This process is usually compounded by a similar bias among the editors. In the case of Beinart's piece, it was so well put together that I suspect most readers were just nodding their heads with contentment and had nothing to add.

drydock - before we invaded Iraq, we heard about the hundreds of thousands of children who were dying as a result of UN sanctions. Yet the 'anti-war' left resisted efforts for regime change in Iraq in favor of 'peace'. (They also don't seem to be too concerned with the current UN oil-for-food scandal)

Currently, the UN is seeking 'peace' in the Sudan. More than 1 million are dead at the hands of the Islamist regime. How many must die for the UN's and the Left's efforts toward 'peace?'

..and I hate to go off topic on my own post, but I was doing a search for Lancet/discredited and found this:

Lancet editor "regrets" research paper which caused worldwide vaccine scare

"In February 1998, a five-page research paper by Dr Andrew Wakefield and 12 other doctors from the Royal Free hospital, London, was published in the Lancet medical journal, linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine - MMR - with autism. This one paper triggered a worldwide scare over the vaccine's safety, and falls in children's immunizations. Six years later, Brian Deer investigated the research, and exposed its finding as a sham. -> Go to the Lancet fiasco for an overview"

Not only was the recent Lancet study of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq discredited, but they seem to have a history of publishing junk science.

The New Republic, except for its position on Israel, controlled by Marty Peretz, long ago ceased being a moderate voice. This is not TNR of Andrew Sullivan and Michael Kelly. Ever since the late 90's, when Clinton's lack of integrity became obvious for all to see, TNR became essentially another, slightly tamer "gotcha" rag, out to denigrate not just the policies but the very motives of Republicans. No Republican, including McCain has been spared. Like Clinton, TNR is no longer about ideas but about process. Indeed, Beinart's article was itself about process. About how Democrats can win elections by mimicing the Cold Warriors of yesteryear. Like Elmer Fudd running over a cliff, Beinart does not yet realize he is falling. There is no there there, During the whole Bush administration, early war on terror aside, TNR has been devoted to attacking, not just Bush's performance but his very motives. I dropped my subscription several years ago. I doubt I am alone. They, like the Democratic party itself are now reaping what they have sowed. I am certain that the letters criticizing Beinart, who has been, relentless in his attacks on Bush and has rarely written about actual ideas, are a genuine reflection of opinion of TNR's readership. Had other letters been received, they would have been printed.

Perhaps "discredited" is too strong a term, but for a rebuttal on the 100,000 statistic, check FrankWarner and thread for November at:

http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/11/100000_innocent.html

Mary--
1) The anti-war left opposed the sanctions on Iraq. So I'm not sure how that makes them resposible for the Iraqi deaths by sanctions.

2) Sanctions strengthed the Iraqi state by punishing the general population (not the Baathist appartus)while allowing Saddam to then blame it on the U.S.

3)Regime change probably would have happened in 91 following the Gulf War when Kurds and Shiites rebelled. The U.S. preferred (at that point) Saddam to the revolting population. Thats why the US 1) slaughtered fleeing Iraqi troops (who had their guns pointed at the Baath party) 2) allowed Saddam to brutality suppress the Shiites and Kurds.

3)Regime change probably would have happened in 91 following the Gulf War when Kurds and Shiites rebelled. The U.S. preferred (at that point) Saddam to the revolting population. Thats why the US 1) slaughtered fleeing Iraqi troops (who had their guns pointed at the Baath party) 2) allowed Saddam to brutality suppress the Shiites and Kurds..---Drydock

And you now proceed(in an entirly predictable and dishonest manner),without passing GO,and without collecting $200.00,to'leftoid'fall-back position #1.And you wonder why the 'left'is so much abhored and IGNORED in the important conversations.Let me give you a small clue --
You don't have ANYTHING to say .
I am not going to engage you further.Life is too short.

The Cost/Benefit analysis, when it includes human lives, always gets problematic. It IS, in fact, an important question. A VALUE question, more than a fact question.

Drydock, let me challenge you directly. How many Americans would have had to die in the US Civil War before you thought Lincoln was wrong to go to war?

How many SE Asians would have to die after 1974 for you to think it was a mistake for the US to leave Vietnam?

There's a Holocaust memorial being created -- a database with the NAMES of all the Jewish victims. They have 3 million already. I believe the 6 million number of Jews (and am sad the 10 million total murdered is less talked about; the 4 million non-Jews are NOT in the database), and feel sure that the database is missing many.

I suspect an accurate count of Iraqi deaths would be much less than 100 000; but even if it's more like 20 000 (Iraqbodycount or somesuch), the question is good.

The Democratic Party will either have to accomodate exporting democracy, or else accept pro-life people again. (see my 3 dimension analysis of Bush positions: pro-War, pro-Tax Cuts, pro-Morals). Or else keep losing...

As I recall, the Lancet study that cites 100,000 civilian deaths was based primarily on anecdodal evidence collected in the provences of the Sunni Triangle, and then extrapolated country-wide. I'm sure we can all see the flaws of using soft numbers from a small hostile region where fighting continues as the baseline for calculating national numbers in a mostly calm nation.

1) cyberludite-- if your explaination of Lancelet's methodology is true than I would agree that their numbers are probably inacurrate. However my point is more about at what point is the cost too high. Nobody has answered that question.

2) Tom Grey-- Fair questions but I asked first. So answer mine.

3) Doug- uh like Dude uh like I don't understand your point. But since you're not talking to me anymore I guess I'll just live in ignorance.

Drydock ...

The Lancet article was pure politics. It was not anything approaching rational science. The report's appendix listed it's margin of error as 90,000 deaths. Meaning, the actual deaths according to the "study" could have been as low as 10,000, or as high as 190,000; and still been consistent with the results of the study.

Statistically, the error in the study makes it's conclusions absolutely meaningless.

The methodology was also appalling. The Lancet researches interviewed 63 Iraqi families in and around Baghdad. They were provided with death certificates for 23 deaths (without causes). The rest were anecdotal evidence.

Conclusion: we have absolutely NO WAY of knowing what the actual civilian death toll in Iraq WAS during the actual period of combat between Saddam's Armed forces and the American military.

It could have been as low as 63 people (not likely) or as high as a million (not likely either). The Lancet is useless, you might as well cast chicken entrails and call it science.

Sorry, innumeracy is a pet peeve of mine.

"Is it odd that a magazine written for the transnational progressive crowd is called the Nation?"

No, partially because is no such thing as a "transnational progressive" crowd. The phrase "transnational progressive" was created by conservative webloggers, as a strawman, to describe a legal theory that doesn't exist. You won't find the term used among any noteworthy left/liberal legal thinkers to describe their ideology, nor will you find any noteworthy legal thinkers whose views appoximate what "transnational progressivism" is supposed to be, except maybe some marginal (and therefore, by definition not noteworthy) critical race theorists that no one pays attention to, even on the left.

Incidentally, one of the big proponents of this meme said it came from the law school at Princeton, which doesn't exist. Interestingly, the original article with the Princeton law school cite appears to have been scrubbed.

Here is your link:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2003/04/index.html#000915 [Sorry, I don't know how to do the cool HTML linking through a word]

Not only was the recent Lancet study of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq discredited, but they seem to have a history of publishing junk science.

By that standard, so does every single other scientific journal in the world. All of them have published erroneous, fraudlent, or poor articles at one point or another. What's important is that it is both rare and noticed.

Hi Mary.

Excellent and thought provoking post. I can only add my journey politically and my own sentiments.

I am probably in the liberal side of things politically, in that I'm in favor of Gay Marriage, Abortion Rights, taking care of the elderly, the disabled, the young. I don't want kids going hungry here in America, or abused. I think that government has a responsibility to step in to see these things done.

Yet some things fall into "nice to have" priorities; I'd like them but have higher priority items. Gay Marriage is one. Nice to have but less than National Defense. Which I'd put #1.

My problem (as a two time Clinton voter and one who voted for Dukakis) is that I've drifted to the right in certain issues. I was vehemently anti-gun ownership, until I moved to Louisiana and saw first hand the benefits of gun ownership. You don't understand how crime can impact you out in the income segragated West. New Orleans has Anne Rices's multiple mansions literally two blocks up from Crack Houses. I love the South but it is a lot more mixed, racially, socially, and economically and it changed my view of things. Crime won't stay in poor areas, cause they are close by. Unlike say here in LA where South Central's appalling murders have little impact on the Westside.

So yes, culturally I'm an NRA member who supports the Death Penalty (with multiple reviews), and thus unwelcome in the Democratic Party even though I probably agree on most though not all of their domestic platform.

Foreign Policy wise; to me 9/11 showed that we had a central problem in our policy. Foreign regimes felt no cost to supporting terrorists attacking us, something that had started under Nixon and the PLO's murdering diplomats. So we had to make people pay in the only currency they understood, regime removal. Lobbing $5 million missiles at $5 tents would not do anymore.

Culturally, most of the Democratic Party simply cannot abide this. They are the Hollywood Elite, uber-liberal Billionaires like Soros, and the immature "screw em" Kos Kidz who imbibe anti-Americanism as the new rebellion. This is where the money is; and they focus the party's policies. The bulk of the Party simply cannot abide military use of force, and lives in a fantasy world of the Davos conferences, G8 summits, and comfortable salons where everyone is reasonable. They have no comprehension of the murder and bloodlust of Saddam, Osama, and the various other faces of Islamic rejection of the modern world (of which we are the focus).

I think the Party is fatally flawed. If it adopted a populist approach in domestic and foreign matters it would be the natural majority party; but this would require re-thinking of gun control, the death penalty, and the current broken collective security methode (I'm all for one that actually works). The Party can't do this because it would invalidate the elitist, Ivy-League, wealthy urban elite that controls it's core.

If we are living in a Die Hard movie; the majority of the Party would side with the suave, sophisticated European instead of the crude American Cowboy:

Hans Gruber (sneeringly): Do you really think you can prevail against us, Mr. American Cowboy?

John McClain: Yippe kay yay .

To put it mildly, this is not where most Americans are, moreover they are right in their appraisal. Perhaps the Republican Party will split. So far my Party seems toast.

Mary, a hearty welcome to you.

You may or may not enjoy your stay, since your hitch seems to coincide with the chomsky crowd finally noticing the threat posed by MJT.

It's going to be murky here for a few days, or weeks, at a minimum.

My two cents on the question whether or not the letters to the editor are to be taken as representative:

Kerry got a lot of votes. TNR seems to stay away from the rhetoric that rags like Nation or Mother Jones indulge in, but they are still on the wrong side of history.

You are attacked, you know who did it and why, and you go and win the war.

The tiedye crowd's world pivots on the acceptance that America deserves every bit of shit it receives because we are the bastion of white privilege, crony capitalism, and our entire history is an unbroken litany of exploitation, class subjugation, and jingoistic imperialism.

All of it. Every single second since the first pilgrim shoved an indian off his land, we've sucked. Our streets are filled with hopeless dregs (wearing 200 dollar sneakers and carrying cell phones). Economic disaster looms with every WalMart grand opening. The construction of any powerplant is the tipping point into an ecological chelmno, certain to bring entire species to the brink of extinction.

And every act of government NOT packaged as a well-meaning attempt to 'level the playing field' or 'take care of (fill in victim group)' or merely written by those bilefilled, bigoted, bastard republicans is a running screaming leap at fascism...

No, I really don't take the Democrat party seriously any more. If there is a party left, of course; when the dinosaurs still clinging to their fiefdoms in D.C. are reduced to spouting BS on the floor of the U.S. senate of the flavor that ended up on Michael Moore's editing room floor because it was too over- the- top even for him, well, there's not much reason to pay attention.

They are looking for power for themselves; what was once a national party is reduced to a bunch of victims and activists looking for power - not the responsibility to protect and defend the nation.

Economy is chugging right along. Elections in Afghanistan. Elections this week in Iraq.Libya, Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, and other Muslim countries have cooperated in our efforts to lesser or greater lengths.

Conflict is not defeat. It's the process by which a decision is reached. And the moonbats... the moonbats are demonstrating a lack of faith in democracy that would not be surprising in the hovels of Baathist Iraq or the halls of Tehran.

Losers.

Kimmit --

The Lancet has fallen on hard times, just like the NYT or CBS. "Fake but accurate" no longer cuts it; the Internet and the increased availablity of raw data makes this sort of thing no longer acceptable.

Given the poor standards of the NYT and their history of making things up; I would not trust anything coming out of their publication without referencing it somewhere else. The same for CBS and the Lancet.

Lest anyone think Americans are immune, they are not. JAMA has also been caught in various "studies" that did not hold up under peer review; and were rushed to print before that. Heck Michael Belisles claimed all sorts of ludicrous things on his book about American Gun ownership, then admitted he made stuff up when folks went to check his sources/raw data. Prestigous Emory University ended up suspending him for violating scholarship standards.

Rule of thumb; if a scholar cannot provide his/her raw data to other scholars for independent verification then he/she probably made stuff up.

I've stated my belief that the cost of our being in Iraq is worth the benefit of deposing Saddam, freeing 25 million Iraqis and reducing the threat of terrorism in the Western World (including the US). Others here have concurred.

The question then is: for what benefit would drydock be willing to spend 100,000 lives? 50,000? 1,000? or how about 1?

mistermark,

Transnational Progressivism was first described in the Summer 2002 issue of Orbis. You can read the article here. (PDF format) TP is defined as an ideology or a worldview - not a legal theory.

I'm aware that the Left doesn't describe itself as TP, but for those of us outside the Left, it seems to be a good description of what the post Cold War Left has become.

Too many Steves-- So 1,000,000 dead Iraqi civilians would be okay in your book.

Answer the question, is there anything you would give a life for?

I mean this most sincerely: No is a reasonable answer. No answer is not reasonable.

If nothing is worth the loss of life to you, then you're nothing but an animal. Seriously.

Think about it.

drydock - you never answered my question. How many innocent people will the Left and the UN allow to die for their dream of 'peace'? An organization that has a knee-jerk opposition to war will be always be unable to prevent genocide.

You say the Left opposed sanctions in Iraq. What effective measures did they take to stop those sanctions?

For years the left blamed the deaths in the Sudan on Clinton's bombing of an 'aspirin factory' - not the Islamist regime. Was Clinton's bombing of an aspirin factory also responsible for the Arab/Islamist-imposed slavery there?

All right Drydock, I'll bite. I actually think your question's a fair one though as another poster mentioned, it's a little grisly doing cost-benefit analysis with human lives.
To arrive at an answer, one needs to determine the number of Iraqi lives that would have been lost had the U.S. not gone into Iraq. Obviously this involves a lot of guesswork but here goes. (I should add that the figures I use come from my memory of estimates I've read in the past from humanitarian groups and the UN. If I'm off, substitute a correct number).
Had the U.S. not invaded, sanctions would have remained in place (despite the desires of some on the left) for, I would guess another ten years before international will petered out. I believe it's estimated that around 10 000? Iraqis were dying a year from sanctions. So, over the next 10 years, that's 100 000 dead.
Now, I believe I read that Saddam was responsible, on avg., for the deaths of 50 000 of his own people each year over the course of his dictatorship. I'm guessing that's skewed by the Iran war and his gassing of the Kurds. I don't imagine he'd start any new wars while the sanctions were in place so let's say he murders only 10 000 people a year over the next ten. That's another 100 000 dead. After the sanctions lifted, I see no reason why he wouldn't revert to his usual 50 000 a year. Say he stays in power for another ten years after that. That's 500 000 more dead.
Now toss in all the deaths caused by the suicide murderers he sponsors and possible minor invasions over his final years and our total - which I believe is fairly conservative - approaches a million. So, if you really want an answer, mine's a million deaths. Actually I'd likely go higher than that considering possible major wars he might start in the future and the result of his lunatic sons taking over.
Luckily, the number of deaths that will actually result won't even come close to that before stability is brought to Iraq. Which makes the liberation an easy one to support.

Oh - and by the way Drydock - you avoided answering someone else's question earlier with "I asked first." Well I answered, now I'd like you to answer Tom Grey's question. "How many Americans would have had to die in the US Civil War before you thought Lincoln was wrong to go to war?"

drydock

Boy, did you suck the oxygen out of the room!

FWIW, one of the major flaws of the Lancet paper was that they may have inadvertantly included the missing among the dead due to their sampling method - consequently, the Lancet estimate of dead civilians may include a high proportion of refugees, people who simply fled a hot combat zone. To give the authors of the Lancet paper some credit, this sort of project is extremely difficult, but after the fact it's hard to see what possible value an estimate with such large error margins would have (other than the crassly political).

The question you pose, how many dead Iraqis would change your mind about the Iraq war, is still worth considering, discrepant Iraqi casualty estimates aside.

I guess one way of answering this question is to look at Hussein's bodycount, and to determine at what point the cost/benefit of intervention hits a tipping point. If one looks at casualty estimates for the Iran-Iraq war (~750,000), the Kuwait invasion (?), cost of his non-compliance to UN resolutions on the Iraqi population (say, 100,000/yr. for a decade?), local repression of Kurds/Shia (the mass graves have an estimated 300,000 occupants), etc., I think you'll find that a very conservative average annual bodycount for Hussein was on the order of about 50,000 per year over the period of his rule, and more than 2 million dead by his policies. We've mostly stopped that, and I think that's a fine thing. As a Humanist, I think we should probably be there for at least as long as we (the US) supported Hussein, or until the Iraq's sovereign integrity is restored (via a functioning army/police/civil government) and the Iraqi people (via their duly elected representatives) ask us to leave (this may take decades - cf. the Phillipines, S. Korea, Japan, Germany, etc.). We owe them that much, surely, and additional dead civilians under Coalitional occupation only compound that debt. If we were shown to be as bad as Hussein (~2 million dead?) to the Iraqi people, then I'd definitely have to rethink my support for humanitarian reasons, since we'd be no better than the despot we deposed. Of course, it'd take a lot harder numbers than the Lancet paper's guesstimate to convince me. How many more years would you have supported Hussein being left in power, assuming the UN continued to keep it's thumbs warm and it's pockets lined through oil-for-food, as Iraqi bodies piled up from sanctions and internal oppression?

It's a real pity Hussein wasn't removed from power after Gulf I, but pre-USSR collapse, the US foreign policy in the middle east (and elsewhere) seemed to be dominated by bipartisan realpolitik support for anti-communist strongmen, and in the intervening years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and pre-9/11, institutional inertia seemed to value stability over any alternative transformative (liberal/humanitarian/neocon/other) policy, and in Iraq, the Kurds and Shia (etc., etc.) paid a heavy price for that lack of vision. It is in this regard that I suggest you read Wolfowitz on the Middle East - not what they say about him on Atrios or Znet, but what he says in his own words (say, here http://middleeastinfo.org/article4840.html). The guy's an idealist, truer to classical liberalism than a lot of people out there. Of course, YMMV.

Mary, if you're interested in fighting, I'll oblige.

Your first posting here and you:

1) Pick up on yet another "The democrats need to become republican hawks" article, very last Tuesday.

2) Excerpt letters about the article to make the same point (at what point does blogging become too displaced? When the blogger spends too much time discussing comments about something else, that's when.

3) Don't provide any of your own arguments

The cold war was not a simple, straightforward affair (but a model of clarity compared to the current situation) and there was more than one way to 'fight' communism. The most effective way turned out to be active, direct, non-aggressive engagement with the satellites (not that clear at the time, but fairly clear now, I think).

Yes, the democrats could and should come up with better alternatives than Bush has.

But one problem is that the current state of political dialogue has been horribly degraded. Trying to have a rational discussion of the 'war on terror' is a mess. I'm not much interested in discussing scenarios and strategies that have not been publicly adknowledged and owned up to by the administration, and as far as I know, there are no clear, (publicly) defined goals from the administration and no clear delineation of who the enemy is or what the enemy wants or what we want to do about it. (I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, I'd welcome references to clear statements, naming names and ideologies and strategies as opposed to Rorsharch codewords that supporters and opponents alike interpret however they damned well want to.)

So, Mary, I'll expect better from you in the future.

Kimmitt's point caught my eye: All [scientific journals] have published erroneous, fraudlent, or poor articles at one point or another. What's important is that it is both rare and noticed.

At what point might that (back page?) correction appear in Eurorags to counter huge front page headlines shaping world opinion proclaiming 100,000 IRAQIS DEAD!?

Okay, nevermind.

Slate's debunking of the Lancet study's methodology is here:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/

Whenever anyone cites the dubious 100,000 figure, my first question is whether they'd actually read the study, or are just parroting that number from a second or third hand source. That seems, once again, to be the case here. The odd thing is, these are usually the same kind of people who were just a few months ago parroting the 17,000+ civilian casualty figure promulgated by the anti-war Iraqibodycount site, despite that study's equally dubious methodology. For example, that group includes deaths from Iraqi terrorist attacks by Zarqawi and his kind in their own tally, on the logic (?) that the Coalition's presence in Iraq is without UN authorization:

http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2004/05/iraq-body-count-lies-about-its-own.html

Oh, there was a certain, quiet, fist-pumping delight, when the Lancet gave anti-war ideologues an excuse to up their expressions of moral outrage. ("Wow, 80,000 more dead civilians than previously thought? YES!") It certainly doesn't seem to be driven by any genuine concern, for if it was, you'd think they'd at least take the time to actually look up the methodology of the studies they're now touting at cocktail parties. Were Human Rights Watch or another reputed organization to come out with a rigorous, painfully researched study that gave a tally of civilian deaths far below those numbers, that it turned out that the vast majority of 25 million people were left relatively unscathed by American military might, do you think that somewhere deep inside their darkest place, they'd feel just a bit, well, disappointed with the death downgrade?

Why yes, I think they would.

The over-the-top unneeded fire bombing of Dresden, about 100 000 civilian deaths when it was clear the allies were going to win, seems a good standard to me.

Less than 100 000 pro-democracy Coalition caused deaths is a good job. With over 25 million people, 1% is 250 000. If this many or more are killed by the Coalition, it was a bad job.

But still, and always, a noble cause. Noble like Lincoln's noble War against Slavery.

I've long said 2 500 American deaths, about the WTC, is the most Bush can lose and still get an "A". Right now he's at about 93%.

The deaths by the anti-democracy Death Squads are, likely, to be less than what Saddam was causing. But Saddam's murdering was less public -- I'm very interested in his trial at the dates of the various mass graves.

I'm interested in your numbers.

Whatever the number of deaths on behalf of the liberation is nothing compared to the amount of lives saved, today and in the future, because of the liberation.

Genocidal 'peace' is far more evil than war.

It may seem crass, but I don't care much about the "Noble" cause of spreading liberty. It's a grand notion, and a worthy endeavor, but a weak justification to choose when people like drydock are attempting to prove the war unjustified.

But here's a few reasons why we needed to take him down:
Fact: Saddam was an evil guy, and a sworn enemy.
Fact: Saddam had sweetheart deals with leading European nations, Russia, and China for post-sanctions oil production. (present and future economic rivals)
Fact: Saddam intended to resume weapons research and production post-sanctions
Fact: The U.N. Sanctions were crumbling
Fact: Saddam rhetorically and financially supported the destruction of a U.S. ally
Fact: Historically, when powerful enough, Saddam committed acts of aggression against his enemies and neighbors.
Fact: Of our greatest enemies Iraq was the most vulnerable
Fact: Occupying Iraq and Afghanistan places us at the front and back door of Iran, another nation sworn to bring "Death to America".
Fact: Syria, another enemy, is now staring down the barrel of a gun.
Fact: Saddam attempted to assassinate a U.S. President
Fact: Northern Iraq was home to the largest Terrorist training camp in the world.

These are all reason enough for me. Even 1 civilian death is too much to bear in armed conflict, but life is ugly, unfair, and such are the realities of our world.

We can strive to be as civil as we want, we can protest treatment of terrorist prisoners, and we can abhor armed conflict, but these things require two players. When one of those players reverts to the basic rules, behaves uncivil, then there is no other recourse than to beat him at his own game. Kill or be killed, survival of the fittest and all of that. Know your enemy, and exceed him in every way.

But when it is over, when the enemy is slain, we can then reinstate our "civility" and live on in the manner in which we choose.

It is an ugly business war, and not an ideal solution by any means, but one which can, will, and must be used to destroy those enemies who choose to live by the gun.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said 'Peace'. I wondered, whose peace?

It may sound Orwellian to say this, but peace is maintained by the threat of violence. It doesn't just spontaneously occur. I enjoy peace here in my little village because the local police have a monopoly of violence. They could, effectively, destroy me and my family---but we abide by common rules that we agree upon and they enforce.

Much of France's experience of the Nazis was during peaceful relations with Germany. There was a brief war when Hitler invaded, then a long spell of 'peace.' It was Hitler's peace -- during which time terrible tragedies fell upon France, who lost her freedom. It took warring Allies barging into Normandy to end Hitler's 'peace' with France.

The anti-war crowd should be mindful of whose peace was being maintained during the 12 year sanction of Ba'athist Iraq. And when they demand peace at protests, they should be clear on whose terms for peace they are demanding. 'Peace' does not mean anything as a single word -- it requires a condition. Peace is a good thing; we all should be blessed by it. But without a credible threat of violence, it cannot be maintained.

"But here's a few reasons why we needed to take him down:
Fact: Saddam was an evil guy, and a sworn enemy.
Fact: Saddam had sweetheart deals with leading European nations, Russia, and China for post-sanctions oil production. (present and future economic rivals)
Fact: Saddam intended to resume weapons research and production post-sanctions
Fact: The U.N. Sanctions were crumbling
Fact: Saddam rhetorically and financially supported the destruction of a U.S. ally
Fact: Historically, when powerful enough, Saddam committed acts of aggression against his enemies and neighbors.
Fact: Of our greatest enemies Iraq was the most vulnerable
Fact: Occupying Iraq and Afghanistan places us at the front and back door of Iran, another nation sworn to bring "Death to America".
Fact: Syria, another enemy, is now staring down the barrel of a gun.
Fact: Saddam attempted to assassinate a U.S. President
Fact: Northern Iraq was home to the largest Terrorist training camp in the world."

Okay, how many of these has Bush publicly owned up to, endorsed? How many had he endorsed and given as justification prior to the invasion?
I'm not (only) being a smartass here. I'm genuinely curious. I'm sort of out of the loop (since I don't live in the US) and may have missed some of the debate.

Michael Farris: Okay, how many of these has Bush publicly owned up to, endorsed? How many had he endorsed and given as justification prior to the invasion?

First of all the President doesn't have anything to "own up to". He has stated, Condi has stated, Colin Powell has stated numerous times that there were various justifications for effecting regime change within Iraq. Not the least of which violation of 17 U.N. Resolutions.

However as Dr. Rice stated during her recent confirmation hearings, the WMD justification was the one thing that the administration felt everyone could get behind. This is b/c France said they had them, Russia said they had them, Britain and many others truly believed he had them.

As it turns out he may not have, but no one lied, and while that single justification was incorrect, there were a myriad of other reasons, that HAVE been cited by the Bush Administration as well as many of his recent critics, which were equally justifiable.

Mary, if you’re interested in fighting, I’ll oblige..

I’m not really interested in having a fight. The point of the post was Beinart’s essay, A Fighting Faith. Thus, the reference.

If I wanted to start a fight, I’d say something like ‘that Zell Miller, gotta love him’ or ‘Are Tinky Winky and SpongeBob Squarepants operatives in a plot to destroy civilization as we know it? - discuss’

The point of the post was to ask if readers, left, right, center agreed with Beinart or the letter writers.

Many, like Jim Rockford and TmjUtah, were disappointed by what the Democratic party has become, and most don’t believe that the Dems can fix their party, which is a shame, because the two party system depends on a viable, electable opposition.

You can disagree about why the Democrats are on this downhill slide, but you can't contest the fact that people are leaving the party. Maybe ex-Democrats can explain why.

In short, the point of the post was to ask a question and to listen to the answers.

So, Mary, I’ll expect better from you in the future

What’s with the critique and the authoritative tone? Are you a registered professor of blogology? Did your write your thesis on posting? Until I see your curriculum vitae or another proof of your authority, I’m just going to keep posting in my own random way.

Michael Farris: Okay, how many of these has Bush publicly owned up to, endorsed?

On October 10, 2002 Congress passed the Iraq War Resolution. It explicitly lists Saddam's connections to terrorism, his plot to kill a US President, violations of the cease-fire agreement, violations of UN resolutions, persecution of Iraqi minority groups, and oh yes, WMD. It was approved almost unanimously.

In his address to the United Nations, Bush stated that we could no longer wait until a threat was imminent before we acted.

So, given these facts, what's an intellectually honest liberal to conclude? Well, it's obvious that Bush rushed to war based solely on claims of imminent WMD. Case closed.

"What’s with the critique and the authoritative tone? Are you a registered professor of blogology? Did your write your thesis on posting? Until I see your curriculum vitae or another proof of your authority, I’m just going to keep posting in my own random way."

You wrote that you're interested in fighting. I took you seriously. My mistake, I'm sorry, deepest apologies and all thought. Continue (or proceed, whatever).

To answer Michael Farris:

"Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council; " and so on & so forth

from the Iraq War Resolution, as psoted at
http://www.yourcongress.com/ViewArticle.asp?article_id=2686

Mary -

"Many, like Jim Rockford and TmjUtah, were disappointed by what the Democratic party has become,..."

Nail, head, Mary.

The vibrancy and strength of a representative republic is indeed based on the healthy competition of ideas resulting in solutions aimed at a common goal.

The democrats' purported intent to make government the arbiter of personal happiness is contradictory to all that was ever intended by the constitution. The job of government is not to babysit. Good intentions aside, it never works. Combine faux populist strategies and victim management with the overt cynicism and elitism that permeates what's left of the D.C. dem fraternity WHILE WE ARE TRYING TO FIGHT A WORLD WAR and maybe you can understand where I'm coming from.

Thirty years of swirlyman for the Dems. I look forward to the last gurgle in the commode. Maybe they will come back as some sort of democracy - supporting party, and not a life support system for failed theories and hacks.

Elaine, thank you very much.
I could have found that if I weren't too dim to think of looking for it. I think it will serve very well as a foundation for judging progress in Iraq (though I wont' have time till tomorrow morning my time [GMT +2] to say more).

You can disagree about why the Democrats are on this downhill slide, but you can't contest the fact that people are leaving the party. Maybe ex-Democrats can explain why.

This ex-Democrat left for a number of reasons, chiefly reaction to liberal/leftist positions and behavior that inspired in me reactions ranging from exasperation to disgust. I believe in a level of personal responsibility at significant odds with the Dems nanny-state MOPE sniveling. I'm pro-gun, pro-death penalty, and pro-OIF. I can't stomach leftista darlings such as Arafat and Fidel and Mumia or groups of malignant lunatics such as MoveOn and ANSWER. I respect the men and women who don uniforms and go into harm's way on my behalf -- and have the utmost contempt for those who denigrate, slander, and/or malign them. A party which nominates as its Presidential candidate a man who did that very thing (his -- highly questionable -- service notwithstanding) is simply not a party I can belong to.

In his address to the United Nations, Bush stated that we could no longer wait until a threat was imminent before we acted.

That's not what he said -- he said that "imminence" was an outmoded concept in an age of terror, since we might not learn of a threat until long after it has already resulted in the deaths of millions.

Which might have been relevant, had Saddam had the capacity to engender those deaths, but we now know he did not.

In essence, Bush's argument was, "The United States has the right to do whatever it wants, as long as it throws up the excuse that it was kinda scared of something." Which is fine, but don't be surprised when the rest of the world starts spending a lot of time and money on effective enough defense systems to deter us from invading, including nuclear weapons. When we have made it clear that we reserve the right to invade any country on flimsy or false pretexts, any sane nation with interests that compete against the United States is going to view us as a major threat.

Tom Grey -

"The over-the-top unneeded fire bombing of Dresden, about 100 000 civilian deaths when it was clear the allies were going to win, seems a good standard to me."

Your argument is almost on level with the UseNet Hitler rule.

Just when was it "obvious" the war was won? Stalingrad? Midway? D-Day? Okinawa? And obvious to who? That's the real question here.

A lot of smart people thought the war was won in 1944. That's why Eisenhower placed four green Divisions in the Ardennes. Remember how that worked out? That was the bloodiest land battle in Western Europe... fought after the outcome was "obvious" to lots and lots of people.

You didn't mention Tokyo. Or Kobe, or Nagoya, or the others? Oversight? B-29's were built specifically to penetrate heavily depended airspace and destroy point targets from high altitude. By the time they deployed, Japan's air defense was highly degraded. The lack of spirited fighter opposition, combined with the technical limitations of bombing accuracy and engine attrittion due to operating above thirty thousand feet led to the B-29's operating lower and lower. The industrial base of Japan was bombed back into a mom & pop level of production but it wasn't obvious to the Japanese that they were beat, was it?

The assault on Okinawa began on April first, 1945, and ended just weeks before Hiroshima was bombed. Our cost was around fifty thousand dead, wounded, and missing. Okinawa was the rehearsal for the invasion of the home islands, in exactly the same way that the raid on Dieppe, france, became the primary training tool for D-Day in Normandy.

Read the link; twenty percent of U.S. Navy casualties in WW2 were sustained at or near Okinawa.

After the outcome of the war was "obvious".

Other examples of waste in war? How about our entire Civil War after Gettysberg? Lee didn't have the men (NUMBERS of men - not a damned thing wrong with the quality) or the material to win against the North after Pickett's Charge. He knew it. It was... obvious. But he hoped that by prolonging the fight he could still achieve the political objectives of the South.

It wasn't until Sherman cut the sinews out of the Confederacy that the killing ended. Between Gettysberg and Appamattox Courthouse a dozen or more great battles were fought, and for what?

It's not obvious who will win in this war against Islamofascism. It is beyond our power to declare victory until the enemy lays down the fight.

The people that equate conflict with defeat fail to realize that the aftermath of losing this war will impact their lives in ways far, far greater than absorbing a few million refugees or maybe watching video of strange people in distant places being marched into the desert or jungle. This war isn't a choice; we aren't voluntary participants. There will be a losing side and a winning side, and the decision will change the course of history. Western Democracy spreading and equalizing the living standards of all men, or a world split into battlefields of a twilight war between indolent navel gazers and the barbarians that exist only to kill?

We can always lose, though. That's obvious.

Oh Jeez.
If --imminence is an outmoded concept in an age of terrorism, since we might not learn of a threat until long after it has already resulted in the deaths of millions

Then- obviously- we could no longer wait until the threat was imminent.

In essence, Kimmit's "argument" is that if you ignore what Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime did, ignore what Bush actually said, and ignore the authorization for military action by the United Nations Security Council and both houses of Congress, then it's possible to spout all kinds of nonsense- like talking about Bush "reserving a right" to "invade any country" and idiocy liike "sane nations" viewing us as a "major threat"

The key concept here is sanity. I don't think sanity means what you think it means. Most theories tend to give weight to concerns of holding verifiable beliefs about the objective world.

Kimmit --

One thing has never been explained to me. Why does the Left assume only ONE actor in the Iraq war, Bush? Why does the Left not talk about Saddam's actions.

If indeed, Saddam did not have WMDs, if he was completely above board, clean, and no threat to the United States whatsover, why did he not simply open his country up to inspections after throwing them out in 1998?

WHAT was Saddam hiding? WHAT was Saddam so afraid we'd find that he'd risk war with the US to prevent inspectors from coming in?

Secondly, are you willing to take Saddam's word, unverified, that he's no threat? Will you take the Mullahs of Iran? Are you willing to bet your life, that of your family's, your friends, everyone you know, every day, that a brutal Mid East dictator who feeds people into industrial shredders and watches tapes of people having their hands cut off for FUN won't kill you? Are you willing to do the same with a regime that hangs 16 year old girls in the public square for being raped; is prepared to stone to death a 13 year old girl for the same?

My major problem with the Dems is that they are simply not serious about protecting this country, they want to take the word of any brutal country that could be a threat to us regardless of the risk.

Finally, LA Times is reporting that MoveOn is pushing Dean big-time as Cheney would say for Chair, organizing house parties around showings of F9/11 and overtly wanting to move the Party farther left.

UPDATE ---- this just in ---- UPDATE

The demise of communism has been greatly exagerrated, the fight has not been won.

Our well-placed sources reporting from deep within the Asian continent report that the world's most populous nation is a totalitarian, communist one-party state, whose leadership has consistently shown a blatant disregard for human rights. The right of self-determination (Tibet,Taiwan), freedom of religion (Falun Gong) and freedom of speech (dissenters locked away in mental institutions and reeducation camps) are constantly breached by a brutal and authoritarian leadership.

Yet, despite 1,3 billion people suffering under these inhuman circumstances, voices in the west condemning the abuses of the communist regime are scarce. Indeed it seems that the political and business leaders of the free world are happy to let this communist state finance their deficit (US), censor their publications in exchange for market access (Murdoch) and generally be bribed into silence in the hope of gaining economical advantages.

Kimmitt: "Which might have been relevant, had Saddam had the capacity to engender those deaths, but we now know he did not."

WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN RELEVANT...

BUT WE NOW KNOW HE DID NOT

I assume you willl be fair enough to acknowledge that the latter statement is 20/20 hindsight. Meanwhile, in the absence of that luxury, you acknowledge the "relevance" of that assumption - which I take to mean that in the post 9/11 world -you acknowledge it would be - along with the other half a dozen good reasons - suitable grounds for going to war.

Unless you want to make the claim that Bush knew for certain in advance that there were no WMD's, I for one (as a disgusted Democrat) am getting pretty sick of the "Bush Lied" meme. Do you or do you not think that Bush believed that Saddam had WMD?

Caroline, I suggest you take a long, hard look at this list of quotes concerning WMD made by members of the Bush administration in the run-up, during and after the war. No second thoughts at all?

P.S. Bush's relationship with the truth is best captured in this exchange:

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —

PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?

Oh goodie.

Can somebody go ahead and post the relavent U.N. resolutions, CNN news stories, old press clippings from TIME, the congressional record of the debate prior to the 1998 Clinton call for regime change, and EVERYTHING else having to do with WMD while George Bush was still just a governor back in Texas?

This WMD lies/immenent- threat- as- a- justification meme horseshit; oh my goodness my life isn't complete if the entire screeching moonbat production number isn't trotted out and dealt with at least every other news cycle or so.

Can we talk about the Carlysle Group, too?

If it gets real slow, let's go back and talk about Roosevelt allowing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor and the Chicago Meatpackers' conspiracy to sell leather bits and wood chips as hash to the Army in the Spanish American war. Pleeeeeease?

Leaving Hussein in place in '91 was a calculated risk; who knew that he could lose that bad and still maintain power? After we had consigned ourselves to the reality that he wouldn't fall, we supported the strongly worded resolutions of the U.N. to keep him in the box only to watch him slaughter the Marsh Arabs and Kurds with impunity. And then we watched as the U.N. cashed in, Hussein engineered a failed assassination attempt('s o.k., though - he just tried to kill a Republican) and fired rockets at our aircraft for ten years. Anyone mention his "adopt a pali splodeydope" program? 25K isn't chump change in the hothouse terror enclaves of Gaza and the West Bank, even if the families actually ever got only pennies on the dollar after the blood money was filtered through the various levels of corruption there.

Anyone remember the deployment made to Kuwait in 1996? Three thousand ground troops, several dozen strategic bombers, a naval CTF, all rushed to the Gulf and for what? To "send a message"?

Just how much does it cost to station a combat air patrol over an entire country for a DECADE?

How many after- dark basketball games would those billions have paid for?

I'm glad we've got adults in charge. And I'm glad we've got enough adults to elect more. I think the numbers will just keep getting better for the foreseeable future, too.

novakant, I could just easily provide you with an interesting list of quotes re: Saddam's danger to this country. Can you name which president guaranteed Saddam would use his arsenal against us if left unchecked?

As far as grasps of reality go, the expanded version of your soundbite shows the context in which the statement was made.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can keep asking the question and my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger and the world is better off cause we got rid of him.

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —

PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER: Well —

PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de — dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

Any reasonable person can see that Bush is articulating what you fail to acknowledge: We went to war based on the danger posed by Saddam Hussein. Period. Not on the existance of any particular factory, facility, or lab. The multiple reasons for removing Saddam were detailed in the War Resolution passed by Congress. I suggest you read it. Of course, I susptect willfull ignorance this late in the game.

Conveniently, those opposed to The War (really, Bush) now say that Saddam was contained. Not a threat. Let the sanctions continue. Let the pilots continue patrolling 24/7. Let our enemies laugh at our inaction as Saddam continues his 10 year game of dodge and weave.

America has rejected all that nonsense, thankfully.

Flashback 2001 - both Powell and Condi said he
was contained.

And guess what, I read the resolution, it's just that I don't believe in the concept of preemption, indeed find it dangerous, especially when articulated by untrustworthy people, so I guess we'll simply have to agree to disagree there.

Novokant: "PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?"

As it turns out, the Duelfer report clearly shows that there WAS no difference - that Saddam was prepared to reconstitute his programs within a couple of months once the sanctions were lifted (and we now know (speaking of 20/20 hindsight) how hard our European "allies" were working to get those sanctions lifted.)

I will add to the list of reasons for deposing Saddam enumerated above (besides humanitarian, WMD, terrorist connections, violations of 17 resolutions, the fact that we were technically still at war as he had failed to comply with the cease-fire agreement):

1. Salvaging the credibility of the UN - lest every tin pot dictator in the world think he could get away with flouting numerous UN resolutions with impunity.
2. putting an end to the sanctions, which were killing a large number of innocent Iraqis.
3. addressing the root causes of terrorism - a freedom deficit in the ME. Because of its large and well-educated population and its experience under secular governance, Iraq was judged a good place to start.

That's a hell of alot of good reasons - a veritable confluence of them. When so many darned good reasons converge - and when any one of them alone (e.g. the humintarian one - to use Clinton's policies as a precendent) could have sufficed - the burden of proof lies with the war's detractors. That's why their response is so lame and relies totally on 20/20 hindsight - there were no WMD's! Bush lied! You can't even be honest about the definition of the word "lie". Prove that Bush knew in advance that no WMD would be found and the Bush lied meme might have some credence. Once you've accomplished that - move on to the other half dozen arguments and make a case that all of them together don't make a good case for going into Iraq.

Novokant: Flashback!

February 2001 comes BEFORE September 2001! If you don't think that 9/11 changed the meaning of the word "threat" then you have missed the whole point.

Novokant: "I don't believe in the concept of preemption"

Did Milosovic declare war on or attack the US?

Novokant: "Yet, despite 1,3 billion people suffering under these inhuman circumstances, voices in the west condemning the abuses of the communist regime are scarce"

Am I to assume from that statement that you are advocating that the US goes to war with China and that you would support such an action? Ditto NK? Or are you just pointing out that the US hasn't gone to war against every brutal regime in the world and that therefore its intentions are completely discredited in the cases when it does?

Regarding China - I assume you are familiar with Thomas Barnett's book "The Pentagon's New Map" - in which he discusses global military strategy in the context of the "gap" and the "core"?

See what he says about China:

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/published/pentagonsnewmap.htm

novakant - according to this article in the New Yorker, Bush's decision to depose Saddam was based on that old warmonger Carter's doctorine.

"Cheney has since been criticized for exaggerating the threat that Saddam represented, but the geostrategic thinking that underpinned the energy portions of his speech was not new. It dated back to January 23, 1980, when President Jimmy Carter declared, in his State of the Union address, "Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Michael Farris - You wrote that you're interested in fighting. I took you seriously. My mistake, I'm sorry, deepest apologies and all thought.

Oops. I was trying to be the hostess, trying to keep my response ‘light’. Maybe I should have used a few smiley faces?

Aaaaah! Please, Mary, don't compare the New Republic to the Nation ever ever again. That's so unwaranted and undeserved...as a liberal hawk, the New Republic is a beacon of hope (one of very few left these days) for me.

So what if a handful of readers disagreed with Beinart's argument?! The New Republic isn't publishing pieces on their website like the Nation does with the heading, "Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman: Is it possible that a vast and well-organized terrorist conspiracy does not exist?" The New Republic represents the very best of the center-left. The Nation represents the very looniest of the anti-American left-of-liberal fringe.

You struck a nerve here, Mary. As a loyal MJ reader and friend, I'll try not to hold it personally against you. Just...damn, lay off TNR, okay?

I dunno. I have supported the war in Iraq. I think it necessary to initiate (outside Israel) some sort of desire or acknowledgement it could exist support for democracy. I think that important for the world my children and grandchildren will inherit.

That said, I think the US needs a major cluebat in its meddling in foreign affairs. I think we are reaping what we sowed in Iraq during Reagan/Bush I. I don't think there is much there to be proud of re: ME legacy. Iran-Contra, anyone?

Who knows? 10 years from now, Bush II's Iraqi invasion may well read as poorly as Bush I's does. Or it may read as an historical turning point in the ME.

What I DO know, is that the thought-processes behind these actions don't seem to be very public topically. I think that needs to change, if for no other reason than to ask the American public to step up to the plate in requiring a thoughtful vetting of these processes in real time.

For example, I for, one, can say that I think it important for there to be a strategic base/democratic movement in the ME, and that Iraq was the best place to initiate that. But THAT certainly wasn't Bush II's publically declared reason for invading Iraq. And it certainly didn't engage the question -- does the US have the right to invade for those reason.

We are/were all diminished because those queries weren't demanded at the time of invasion. Why? Because the American/World populace isn't up to asking such questions?

CJ,

Pause a second & reflect on how being open about our goal of spreading democracy in the region would have effected the basing rights we required from the assorted non-democratic nations in the area. "Hey, fellahs, can we use your airfields for a project that, if sucessful, will threaten your personal power-base?" Seriously, was the totality of your strategic thinking aquired by playing a couple of games of Risk™ as an undergrad?

The Lancet study was never debunked. Briefly refuting the critiques posted here -

1. It was based on anecdores.
Actualy, it was not. If you read the study, you would find out that it was based on interviews of selected households.

2. The margin of error makes it meaningless.
Actually, it does not. While the 95% confidence interval includes 8k, it also includes 190k. Each point in the confidence interval is not equally likley to be the true result, and, in fact, the most likley result is exactly what the study showed - 98k excluding Falujah.

3. Civilian deaths.
While one of the writeups of the study stated Civilian deaths, the Lancet study actually measured excess deaths - the increase in death post invasion as compared to prior.

4. Families around Baghdad.
The description of the study's methodology being "interviewing 63 people around Baghdad" is massivly innacurate, and a complete fabrication. The study interviewed 988 households in 33 "clusters" (the methodolgy is valid and called "cluster sampling"). It is ironic that the commentor who passed on this farce stated that "innumeracy" was a "pet peeve" of his, but still managed to completly misunderstand what a confidence interval was.

5. Missing or dead?
An attempt was made to get death certificates in some of the cases (2 cases per cluster). It was not attempted in all deaths because of the awkward request - "Sorry your husband died... got any proof?" Of the 78 households where certificates were requested, 63 were provided. In each death, the method of death was asked. None of the explanations was "missing, presumed dead."

6. Slate's debunking
Was wrong. CF:
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002780.html
http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/LancetIraq/lancet7.html
Whenever someone "debunks" the Lancet study, I wonder if they've read it as well. It turns out they mostly haven't. Like you, for instance, WJA.

All of you "debunkers" owe the truth and apology for having butchered it.

FactCheck -

Cluster sampling and such is valid only if the clusters are representative samples. The basic criticism of the Lancet study is that it evaluated areas where fighting occurred, then extrapolated the figures nationwide. That is plainly going to produce an inaccurate result. More to the point, the 100K number was above the number originally cited by war opponents by a factor of more than five. You can talk all you want about methodology, but when the final result is akin to 2 + 2 = 63, you are wrong regardless of your proofs. Finally, this study was produced by people with an axe to grind; that should lead one to a healthy skepticism regarding the result.

Aaaaah! Please, Mary, don't compare the New Republic to the Nation ever ever again. That's so unwaranted and undeserved...as a liberal hawk, the New Republic is a beacon of hope (one of very few left these days) for me.

Comparing two things doesn’t mean that they’re the same. The Nation and TNR are both political journals. So is the National Review. If 5 out of 6 letters to the National Review sounded like they were written by Nation readers, I’d have to wonder what was going on.

According to a poll taken before the election, more than 51% of democrats believed that the US might be to blame for the 9/11 attacks. 17% of republicans believed this. When I read that poll, I began to wonder if the anti-war left really was a ‘fringe’ group within the Democratic party. These letters to the editor also made me wonder. I’m still a TNR subscriber, but I wonder if Beinart speaks for the majority of Democrats. I hope he does..

Ben - I am glad to see that you realize that if the study did what they said they did (cluster sampling), than the studies conclusions are valid. You appear to be accusing the researchers of deliberate and calculated fraud. Do you have any evidence that they committed such fraud, or are you making accusations of massive academic dishonesty with nothing but your ideology to guide you? I think that the later is true, in which case you owe an apology to the truth, which you have also butchered.

Additionally, you accuse the Lancet sudy of only evaluating areas where fighting occoured. I assume that you read the study, located for free on the World Wide Web. Could you detail for us, what areas they took clusters from, and how you were able to determine that those areas are the ones where fighting occoured? Please pay specific attention to Table 1 when evaluating your wild, unsbustantiated, false claim.

The figure posted by the Iraqi Body Count is not an apples to apples comparison to the Lancet study. The Lancet study evaluated all deaths - those by violence, accidental, old age, poor water, whatever. The Iraqi Body Count site does not include deaths that are not due to violence. Comparing the two data points is not valuable, in the least.

FactCheck - thanks for your input, but do you really expect people to waste hours googling and assimilating data too prove to you that an already discredited study has been discredited?

You use links to biased sites like Crooked Timber to prove that your information is not biased. Who do you think you're fooling?

I'll bet Chomsky can back you up too. Or how about Professor Marc Herold, who provided the world with an inflated body count that proved that the US war in Afganistan was a 'racist war'.

Herold's body-count inflating methadology was also used for the Iraq body count figures. Those figures are already inflated, which makes the monumentally inflated Lancet study look even more absurd.

Sure, we'll waste our time, after you prove to us, with data, properly linked and verified, that proves that Herold's 'racist war' thesis was true.

Oh, by the way, if you could also provide data proving leftist myths like "Clinton's bombing of an Asprin factory caused widespread death in the Sudan" were true, that would be so nice.

Mary, as I've said, the study has not been debunked. The debunkers did not understand the study. And yes, if you want me to believe that the study has been debunked, I expect you to "waste hours googling and assimilating data." Of course, it's not a waste, but allow me to suggest that the first thing you might want to do is read the study, which is available for free on the World Wide Web, as I have already stated. The ideologically motivated "debunkings," are resonably well "debunked," by looking for how the study addresses the problems that they believe the study had.

Since I have not done the requiste research on Dr. Herold, I do not think it is appropriate for me to comment on him, or to conflate whatever his methodolgy was with the unblemished records of the individuals who were behind the as of yet academically undisputed Lancet study.

I would, finally, note that I did not use the non-existant data from Crooked Timber or Dr. Lambert's impressive efforts to defuse specific accusations, but rather to counter the terribly researched Slate hackjob. If you have a specific claim of error in the Lancet study you consider unadressed, I am happy to address it directly.

As a postrscript, I do not do research on request. Thank you for your request.

Factcheck,

Under 'Missing or Dead', you wrote:

"An attempt was made to get death certificates in some of the cases ... Of the 78 households where certificates were requested, 63 were provided" (out of 988 households - GT)

So... the study had proof of death in 63/988 (~6%) of the cases they used to extrapolate overall Iraqi casualties, and only attempted verification in 78/988 (~8%). While some of the deaths may well have been of the "can you PROVE your husband is dead" variety, others may well have been of the "what happened to the people who used to live in this house?" type, where the interviewees may simply not know if the former residents are dead or fled (fog of war and all that). Neither of us, nor the authors of the study, can really say how many of the anecdotal, undocumented deaths (which constituted 94% of the study's dataset) were of which type.

To the author's credit, it's very difficult to do what they attempted, and documentation in a war zone might be hard to come by to say the least, but I still think my criticism holds.

FactCheck - linking to Crooked Timber and a "I hate the JunkScience site cuz it’s run by a right-winger" guy does not prove that the information published on Slate is, as you call it, a ‘hackjob’.

When people comment on a site, their goal is usually to share information, to change readers’ minds. You haven’t done that. You don’t even use your real name.

Sharing facts is not your goal and ‘FactCheck’ is still a misnomer. A more appropriate one, like UnsubstantiatedActivistAllegations might still be available, though.

Secondly, are you willing to take Saddam's word, unverified, that he's no threat?

Why would I have to? Weapons inspections and extensive intelligence confirmed before the war even started that even if Saddam had any WMD left, they were few and far between at best -- and the two persons who were best informed on the issue, Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, were quite clear on the point.

We still do not know why Saddam kept up the charade that he had something to hide, but Blix and Ritter were right: he was hiding weakness, not strength.

Iraq was a contained threat. Al Qaeda wasn't and isn't. If you're worried about oppressive and genocidal regimes, take on the Sudan, the Republic of the Congo, or maybe Myanmar. Invading Iraq was bad policy, and trying to do it on the cheap was particularly stupid.

Gene - you seem to be laboring under the assumption that the current residents of the household were required to report on the history of the previous residents of the household. This is not accurate. Again, if you read the study, you will find the following quote - "In 63 of 78 (81%) households where confirmations were attempted, respondents were able to produce the death certificate for the decedent. When households could not produce the death certificate, interviewers felt in all cases that the explanation offered was reasonable eg, the death had been very recent, the certificate was locked away and only the husband who was not home had the key. We think it is unlikely that deaths were falsely recorded."

I find it unlikely that you read the study - given that you insist on using the larger number of deaths rather than the smaller number of requests as the denominator, and that you didn't know that the interviewers asked for proof, and that you still assert that people were asked about physical space occupants rather than family members. Do you remember if your father is dead or alive? CAN YOU PROVE IT?

I find it odd that you think that the right division is 63/988, while they only asked for certificates in 78 of the cases, and in the other 15 of the relevent cases, the explanation for the lack there-of was reasonable. Your objection does not hold. Please, I beg you, read the study already, instead of the debunkings/rebunkings. You will find it to be an impressive piece of scholarship, and it gives the best estimate available of excess deaths.

Mary, you accuse Tim Lambert of being a "I hate the JunkScience site cuz it’s run by a right-winger" kind of guy. I assume you are aware that Dr. Lambert is a respected professor of Computer Science at The University of New South Wales, and has done substantial work on clarifying scientific works in the public space for pleebs like you and me. You accuse him of rampant bias and dishonesty, to which I ask you, yet again - Do you have any evidence that he committed such fraud, or are you making accusations of massive academic dishonesty with nothing but your ideology to guide you?

Mary, the only person not trying to educate and convince the other person here is you - with your shouted down commands that I not link to people you find distateful (because they disagree with you?) or that I'm not providing data (that you like?). It seems to me that I've given a huge amount of data, and that you and your fellow debunkers have been responding with uneducated misnformation. In fact, I think that of the people adding value to the conversation (and I believe Gene is certainly doing so, though I believe he is misinformed and needs to read the study), you rank the lowest, as your sole goal here appears to be to ridicule and demean people you disagree with. At least I'm trying to prove people I find wrong to be wrong, instead of just shouting louder. You could learn a thing or two from me or Gene, if you prefer someone who you think is on your ideological side of some imaginary divide, I think. I would finally note that I have not declared a position on the current conflicts, and your continued assumptions that I am a liberal come only from the fact that I believe studies should be evaluated on their merits rather than what people on my side of the ideological divide see as their benefits. Perhaps that's because I'm an honest moderate, instead of a wingernutjob/moonbat crazy. Perhaps.

My real name is George, Mary. What's yours?

FactCheck,

I have read over the study, not thoroughly, but it seems to be, as you contend, professional in nature and technically correct. It is a post facto study of an intervention effect, which is difficult to assess, given possible subject and experimenter bias. Assuming the veracity of the investigators, interviewers and subjects, I can see that it was done meticulously and accurately reported. In fact, it is an admirable effort, given the interviewing environment. A sample of 33 clusters is probably not enough, though, because the underlying phenomenon is not uniformly distributed. It is very skewed, being concentrated in only 1 cluster of their sample. They should have considered dropping that cluster as an outlier, recognizing that a sizeable contribution to the variance is contained in a neglected variable.

My main problem with the study, however, is the statistical arrogance of their final interpretation. The data provide a 95% Confidence Interval of 8,000 to 194,000. This is an absurdly large range. The reason it is so large is that they retained the unusual cluster. They could have reported a much tighter estimate with a much lower mean if they had chosen to do so. In my opinion, using 100,000 as a purported point estimate is unsupported. I could just as well use 10,000. Indeed, they have absolutely no basis for rejecting the original estimate cited of 13,000-15,000. The C.I. is probably not normally distributed, and the bulk of the probability density, in my judgement, is shifted left. A more appropriate point estimate would be the median of that curve. Failing that, the best interpretation of the data is that there is a 97.5% probability that there were more than 8,000 excess deaths, which is certainly a sad enough result. Repeated use of the 100,000 figure can only be justified on polemical grounds.

Gene, assuming that you don't want to read the survey, here's the bit about the Household definition and when a death is a death. I'm confused, given this definition, how you could determine that people would be quizzed about people who died while not living in the house being interviewed, or about previous residents. Perhaps you can clear that up for me:

We defined households as a group of people living together and sleeping under the same roof(s). If multiple families were living in the same building, they were regarded as one household unless they had separate entrances onto the street. If the household agreed to be interviewed, the interviewees were asked for the age and sex of every current household member. Respondents were also asked to describe the composition of their household on Jan 1, 2002, and asked about any births, deaths, or visitors who stayed in the household for more than 2 months. Periods of visitation, and individual periods of residence since a birth or before a death, were recorded to the nearest month. Interviewers asked about any discrepancies between the 2002 and 2004 household compositions not accounted for by reported births and deaths. When deaths occurred, the date, cause, and circumstances of violent deaths were recorded. When violent deaths were attributed to a faction in the conflict or to criminal forces, no further investigation into the death was made to respect the privacy of the family and for the safety of the interviewers. The deceased had to be living in the household at the time of death and for more than 2 months before to be considered a household death.

I apologize for not addressing your points in my earlier post, JJ, and appreciate the profesionalism in which you present them.

You are, however, incorect in your statement that the outlier cluster, Fallujah, was not dropped from the study. From the studies summary: If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1·5-fold (1·1-2·3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98000 more deaths than expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included.

Given that they addressed your very valid concern about the outlier cluster, I will move on to your second point, which is only slightly less valid given your insistance that the wide range is due to the excluded cluster being not excluded.

While the wide confidence interval includes numbers such as 20,000, the most likley result of the study was 98,000 additional deaths. It was the most likley result, and it will always be so. If we start demanding that people report the lower bounds of studies, be prepared for John Lott to write the paper "More Guns, More Crime!"

While cluster sampling is not the best way of doing surveys like this, this is not due to their heavy lower tailed distribution, it's due to their heavy higher tailed distribution (over-estimates more likley than under). The best analogy was Daniel Davies' minefield analogy - a cluser sampling is like throwing stones at an area to determine how covered it is in mines. I'm not going to retype what he wrote, but rather reference it -
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002858.html

You are, however, right in noting that the most interesting result of the study is that it is neary impossible to say there were not excess Iraqi deaths due to the invasion - that zero is outside of the confidence interval.

Sorry, I bobbled a paragraph. Over, under. Here's the correction:

While cluster sampling is not the best way of doing surveys like this, this is not due to their heavy lower tailed distribution, it's due to their heavy higher tailed distribution (under-estimates more likley than over). The best analogy was Daniel Davies' minefield analogy - a cluser sampling is like throwing stones at an area to determine how covered it is in mines. I'm not going to retype what he wrote, but rather reference it -
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002858.html]

My apologies for any confusion.

Factcheck,

Have you even considered the possibility of deliberate bias by the researcher?

Here are some quotes from a POSITIVE article:

"Mr. Roberts insists that his primary motive for rushing the paper to press was not political"

"Mr. Roberts acknowledges that he also hoped to ignite a policy change or public response"

"Robin M. Coupland, a medical adviser on weapons and armed violence in the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has only one concern: Mr. Roberts's team did not document how many people were wounded.

"In every recorded context where conventional explosive weapons have been used in armed contact," Dr. Coupland says, "there's usually two or more people wounded per person killed. The question that glares out from that article is, Where are all the 200,000 wounded?"

Oh, and BTW the sample size was 33 neighborhoods. Given that in a battle you will get either LOTS of casualties in a neighborhood, or none. The probablility of skewed data points is commensurately high.

Other indications of bias....
1) selection of Fallujah as a data point.
2) assertions as to the death toll by violence in the 15 months preceding the invasion. Now where did those numbers come from?
3) no identification of combatants vs. civilians
4) Total of 21 deaths by violence as the entire sample.

See the whole article here:

http://chronicle.com/free/2005/01/2005012701n.htm

Alan - do you have any evidence that they committed such fraud, or are you making accusations of massive academic dishonesty with nothing but your ideology to guide you?

I'm getting tired of copy-pasting this. Please read my comments every time someone has accused the researchers of cooking the books. It's getting old, and honestly, it's really only good to determine when people don't care about the study, just debunking things they wish were not true.

The study was not designed to count wounded people, so it didn't count wounded people. That's just a stupid criticizm, no offence to Mr. Copeland, or you.

Since death is still, happily, a relativly rare event in Iraq, cluster sampling will underestimate deaths. I went over that once once before, when I discussed the minefield analogy. The methods for correcting for cluster sampling (widening the confidence interval) are well known, and were used in this case.

1. Fallujah was excluded from the final calculations, as you would know if you read the summary excerpt, helpfully posted above.

2. What assertions of violence 15 mo prior? Please read the study, and show me what you are talking about.

3. The study was not designed to calculate the morality of killing people, just how many people died. Why would their identification as a combatant change the fact that they died, exactly? Anyway, this is addressed in the study - in the final 3 paragraphs of the discussion section. Have you read it?

4. So? There were only 5 deaths due to infectious diseases! Are you debating cluster sampling as a valid statistical method, or are you challenging the sample size, here? If the latter, please recognize that the sample size is taken account of in the confidence interval.

FactCheck - I'm not accusing the guy who owns the “I hate the JunkScience site cuz it’s run by a right-winger” of dishonesty, I’m just noting that his authority as a news source isn’t comparable to Slate. Neither is ‘Crooked Timber’. You can link to them if you want, you can link to Carrot Top’s site to prove a point, but that doesn’t make it a reputable or comparable source.

A person who hides behind a fake name, a person who claims that he is never wrong (as you have done on this site), a person who gives no email address can’t claim to be a reputable source. A person who claims that pixels shout can’t claim to be factually accurate.

My only goal was to discourage the waste of anyone's valuable time in a pointless argument. For the factually challenged, ‘discourage’ doesn’t mean ‘forbid’ or 'shout' - it's just a suggestion.

Mary, Fred Kaplan's article was wrong in many, many places. Tim and Daniel were fairly through in going over it. I'm happy to adress any individual point you think is unadressed by Daniel and Tim, but you aren't willing to go that way - I responded to your appeal to authority with my appeal to authority. Yay for us. Got any substantive points?

BTW - Daniel Davies, as an Economist is far more authoratative on the subject of statistics than Fred Kaplan, Historian.

Like I said, my name was George. What is yours? You can reach me by email at -> The first letter of my first name, followed by rob22mm@hotmail.com.

I like how you've changed your tune now that I've called you on it - no more shouting for you now, eh? Don't worry, however -> your still at a value-add of zero, perhaps lower. Would you like to engage in substantive discussion, or is the entirety of what you came to say summed up by "Fred Kaplan!" If so, feel free to just post "I demand the last word!" and I promise not to respond to you again.

PS: For all that Liberal Media palabrum, you are certainly willing to appeal to it's authority when you agree with it, aren't you?

Factcheck,

I'm not accusing him of fraud, but I am skeptical for the reasons given. He is an admitted partisan with an axe to grind that rushed to publication to influence the election.

Now, did he rush with indisputable facts?
No, he rushed with a range of almost 200,000 and split the difference based on 21 actual deaths in 33 neighborhoods.

I may not have all the credentials in the world but I know enough about statistics and how to lie with them to have serious doubts.

As to the 15 months, maybe if you read the article I linked you'd see it. But, for everyone else:

"He discovered that the risk of death was 2.5 times as high in the 18 months after the invasion as it was in the 15 months before it; the risk was still 1.5 times as high if he ignored the Fallujah data."

Now, where did he get the data from 15 months before the invasion that served as his base line, hmmmm? I'm sure that Saddam or Bhagdad Bob would provide those stats to anybody, right?

This is the epitome of junk science, a sample where you ask people in 990 house holds ( more than 8 per house ); come up with 21 deaths (leaving out Fallujah) and extrapolate from that to 100,000 dead. That's BS pure and simple. Maybe someone should go back and try and find those 200,000 wounded. They're probably right next to the WMD.

The odds that Fallujah was selected at random are slim and none. I'm sure that it was included because he knew that it was where heavy fighting had occured (finding what you look for) The fact that it was so skewed prevented him from adding it in cause he would have been laughed out of court.

This stinks to high heaven and you seem to be too patisan to take the clothes-pin off your nose.

Come to think of it, I am accusing him of fraud. Did he cook the numbers, the sample or the methodology?

I'm glad to see that the era of people with no idea what they are talking about accusing people who do know what they are talking about of fraud continues.

If you believe that he cooked the data, you should tell the Lancet what leads you to believe that. Try not to start your letter with "Because I believe that this is bad, it is wrong."

You write that the study included only 21 deaths. This, of course, is wrong. It is important that you read a study before deciding it is fraudlent. As I have said before, above, the study includes deaths from more causes than violence. While there were 21 non-fallujah deaths from violence, there were 142 deaths counted in the post invasion period.

The thing about the article you linked to is that it's not the report itself. Reading random articles to understand the report is optional. Reading the report itself is required. You have not read the report, but have read the random articles. I find that rather telling. I, of course, read both the report and the article.

The pre-invasion data was determined by the survey they ran. You can see this in the report, up at the top, in the summary section.

I see that you doubt cluster sampling is a valid statistical methodology. You should probably call the CDC, because they've been using bad math to stop all sorts of epidemics.

You accuse them of picking their results to get a specific result. If you had read the paper, you would find that the clusters were chosen via a method that is detailed in the Methods section. Are you accusing them of lying about how they did their research?

I find it telling that the people with the least to add to this discussion (accusing people of fraud, demanding that people not link to pHD economists) are the ones lest likley to have read the study. Have you read the study you accused of fraud, Alan?

Factcheck - er George - (although I see now why you selected the name factcheck) - I tried to go directly to the Lancet article but it was unavailable. I wonder if you could address 2 points (I am relying on your expertise here):

1. I did read the article when it first came out and I seem to recall that the interviewers relied on verbal reports from the Iraqis they interviewed to provide the ATTRIBUTION for the death - i.e. WHO was responsible. I also recall during the invasion that the Americans were seemingly accused of every death - recall e.g. that early bombing of the marketplace that might well have been caused by errant Iraqi ordinance but which was blamed on the US? Anecdotal evidence even suggests that well into the war many Iraqis were in denial that fellow Iraqis or Muslims could possibly be responsible for the car bombings and so on and that clearly the Americans must be doing it. So can you clarify your impression of the methodology used whereby the Iraqis themselves were permitted to attribute those deaths to American forces without any independent verification?

2. It seems that this whole issue arose in the context of a discussion about how many deaths would be acceptable vis-a-vis justifying the war. That makes your following statement very interesting:

"The study was not designed to calculate the morality of killing people, just how many people died. Why would their identification as a combatant change the fact that they died, exactly"

I notice in the above thread comments, as well as in a number of articles citing the Lancet article, that there appears to be an assumption that these are civilian deaths cited. You are saying that there was no determination of that fact. Are you aware of any statistics which might separate out Iraqi combatant vs Iraqi civilian casualties? And if a large number of them were combatants, or civilian deaths caused by the insurgents themselves (or by erratic Iraqi ordinance from conventional forces during the invasion) then these relative numbers would be highly relevant in terms of trying to address the question re the morality of the war. If 80% of the casualties were enemy combatants that means something very different than if they were civilians and in the latter case it matters a great deal (in evaluating the morality of the war) whether those civilians were killed by Iraqi insurgents/jihadists vs Americans.

I am not trying to be contrary. I am just relying on your evident appreciation for data to perhaps shed some light on these issues.

FactCheck,

You're quite correct that my recollection of the paper is hazy - I skimmed it during the initial foofaraw when the paper was first published, & I got the 'reporting the deaths of neighbors/former household tenants' methodological flaw thirdhand - it's a fair criticism.

However, I still think that their verification method is weaker than it could be.

The reason I used the overall number of unverified deaths in the denominator (rather than than the much smaller number of cases where verification is requested) is because the study is, by definition, extrapolative, and very sensitive to ascertainment/sample bias. They only have documented deaths in 6% (out of 8% attempted) of the deaths reported in their study. Hence, I said that 94% of their reported deaths weren&#