Congeries of cross connected concepts
As the recent Lancet study with an inflated death count for Iraq gets debunked in ever stronger ways, I thought my usual big thought.
The net result of this latest effort at discrediting the USA is likely to do far more damage to the credibility of the Lancet, which was already rocky from the previous debunked effort. This seems to fit a pattern where intellectual assets, acquired after decades of patient efforts in subversion, are burned for a momentary hit against BushCo and his Evil Minions. It doesn’t speak well for a faction’s long term viability if it has to burn such assets just to keep in the game.
| Jeff Guinn Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 19:33 |  |
As devastating as that kind of criticism is, I have yet to read anything following the Lancet numbers to their conclusions:
Given the Lancet “study” must have taken some time to collate and write, even if badly, I’ll use 36 months as a duration over which the deaths occurred.
That boils down to over 4500 deaths per week.
Keeping in mind that not all casualties are deaths, and that a 3:1 injury/death ratio is, if anything, a bit low, that also entails 13,500 war related injuries/week.
I am willing to bet that the Lancet “investigators” didn’t bother to look at the obvious proxies for their death count. 13,500 injuries per week would have to leave some kind of mark in hospital admissions.
Their “investigation” could also have included coffin makers to see if their output was consistent with 655,000 in 36 months.
The advantage to these two proxies is that there are relatively few hospitals and coffin makers, thereby making it easier to get representative samples.
Any cynic could list the disadvantage.
| Annoying Old Guy Thursday, 19 October 2006 at 19:50 | |
Actually, I have seen several other posts on exactly that point. Here’s one prominent example. That’s why I didn’t post on it myself — it’s been done, better, elsewhere.
| cjm Friday, 20 October 2006 at 11:55 | |
the self-destruction of the msm will be gwb’s greatest accomplishment, and his greatest service to the nation. as a nation we have to get a handle on the subversive elements of this country otherwise we will eventually be debilitated to the point weimar germany reached.
| Max Saturday, 21 October 2006 at 15:25 | |
I’ve noted a pattern of the left; If something can be used, it will be used. If it is no longer useful, it doesn’t matter if it’s destroyed.
