Some Michael Scheurer for your Sunday morning

[CID1990]

Our system ISN'T the answer to their problems. That is the point, which you missed in spectacular fashion.

I don't give a sh!t what kind of government Afghanistan practices. I don't care if they are Muslim or Hindu, or if they practice bestiality or ancestor worship. None of those things affect Americans or America. The only thing people understand... the only REAL motivation to restrain yourself from hurting other people is the ASSURED knowledge that if you attack this tribe or that tribe is that they will come back and murder your A$$ to the very last woman and child. The upside of that is that they will also know that you you leave them the fvck alone, they will do the same to you.

I guess I am just not as elevated as you are... as enlightened... but then there were lots of enlightened people killed on 9-11 and their world views did not get them fvck all. They still had to jump out of the top of those buildings while their skin crisped off.

Too many Americans get pissed and full of national self-loathing over why we were attacked on 9-11. I say the reasons we got attacked are insignificant as long as we mark a clear deterrent to a repeat performance. We have the capability to orphan every child and widow every wife over there. We should demonstrate it a little more forcefully and THEN we'll see how much the 'radical' Muslims are bent on seeing Allah.

Scheurer agrees that we should go in there with a massive display of real force, and then get the fvck out. I am completely on board with that. In fact, I don't think it is too late to do so now. We have a surge of troops over there and a sh!tload of B1 and B2 bombers just sitting around doing nothing. I think maybe a good three or four months of strikes targeted indiscriminately at villages and mosques should do the trick. The Taliban strategy relies completely on a perceived American squeamishness at civilian casualties. I say give them a real indication that their theory is wrong. THEN we can withdraw our troops with the promise that we'll come back and do it again if we are fvcked with. Assured and swift retribution. They understand THAT even in the backwoods fvckoff mudhut sh!tholes of Helmand and Waziristan.

Let the UN pass resolutions against the US and then let them enforce them.

BY THE WAY.... innocent civilians get killed in wars, HD. That's how it works.

Yeah, you're such a hard-headed realist and the rest of us are so backward and insular. Go patronize your fist.

There's just one tiny little problem with your scorched earth, bomb-them-into-the-stone-age policy: it doesn't work. The Soviets tried it for ten years; didn't work. Littered the country with mines that looked like kids toys and blew limbs off of hundreds, thousands, of kids; didn't work. Burned the crops in the field: didn't work. They had plenty of your so-called "stomach" for killing and terrorizing civilians, and they left Afghanistan with their tails tucked.

We were busy slaughtering civilians wholesale in Iraq with "surgical" strikes when we should have been killing bin Laden at Tora Bora. You want to send in the B2s? Send them to Saudi Arabia. I'd be for that, but I suspect that the government and those whom they serve don't have the "stomach" to cross the House of Saud.

You must have conveniently forgot that the Soviets were trying to ANNEX the fvcking country, you knucklehead. They weren't exactly dealing with a country and a government that harbored terrorist organizations that were trying to kill Russians. They walked in there without even the courtesy of coooking up a fake reason to do so, and they were there to stay. Plus, you might have also forgotten that we gave the mujaheddin a HUGE hand in that little war. Now, we are missing a golden opportunity to demonstrate how we deal with people who show their gratitude in the way that the Taliban did.

It isn't what he have done in the past or what we are currently doing that gets Americans killed, HD. It is what we aren't prepared to do AND DON'T do that gets Americans killed. You don't recognize that because it doesn't get you laid in your coffee house world. America is one of the softest targets in the damn world, and our enemies know it.

Everybody blames the Bush crowd for shopping out our combat jobs in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to us losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Well, they are damn right about that. And why did we shop out the combat jobs? Because we are too damn squeamish to send in everything we can spare. We don't want casualties. We don't want dead women and children. We don't want to see disturbing images on CNN. The people we are fighting... they see that sh!t EVERY DAY, and they would see it even if there wasn't one fvcking American in Afghanistan. They are numbed to it. The average Afghan would eat the average American for lunch and sh!t them out for dinner. That's why you do things the Chicago way with these people. Like Sean Connery said in the Untouchables: If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, you send his to the MORGUE. Why have all this standoff weaponry if we aren't going to use it? Hell, the expiration date has to be coming up on some of that crap, I say shoot it off where it will do some good.

My scorched earth policy is a wonderful idea. It isn't that it won't work. It's that we will never do it.

P.S.- I'm right there with you on Saudi Arabia.... love ya, HD.

[kalm]

Yeah, you're such a hard-headed realist and the rest of us are so backward and insular. Go patronize your fist.

There's just one tiny little problem with your scorched earth, bomb-them-into-the-stone-age policy: it doesn't work. The Soviets tried it for ten years; didn't work. Littered the country with mines that looked like kids toys and blew limbs off of hundreds, thousands, of kids; didn't work. Burned the crops in the field: didn't work. They had plenty of your so-called "stomach" for killing and terrorizing civilians, and they left Afghanistan with their tails tucked.

We were busy slaughtering civilians wholesale in Iraq with "surgical" strikes when we should have been killing bin Laden at Tora Bora. You want to send in the B2s? Send them to Saudi Arabia. I'd be for that, but I suspect that the government and those whom they serve don't have the "stomach" to cross the House of Saud.

You must have conveniently forgot that the Soviets were trying to ANNEX the fvcking country, you knucklehead. They weren't exactly dealing with a country and a government that harbored terrorist organizations that were trying to kill Russians. They walked in there without even the courtesy of coooking up a fake reason to do so, and they were there to stay. Plus, you might have also forgotten that we gave the mujaheddin a HUGE hand in that little war. Now, we are missing a golden opportunity to demonstrate how we deal with people who show their gratitude in the way that the Taliban did.

It isn't what he have done in the past or what we are currently doing that gets Americans killed, HD. It is what we aren't prepared to do AND DON'T do that gets Americans killed. You don't recognize that because it doesn't get you laid in your coffee house world. America is one of the softest targets in the damn world, and our enemies know it.

Everybody blames the Bush crowd for shopping out our combat jobs in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to us losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Well, they are damn right about that. And why did we shop out the combat jobs? Because we are too damn squeamish to send in everything we can spare. We don't want casualties. We don't want dead women and children. We don't want to see disturbing images on CNN. The people we are fighting... they see that sh!t EVERY DAY, and they would see it even if there wasn't one fvcking American in Afghanistan. They are numbed to it. The average Afghan would eat the average American for lunch and sh!t them out for dinner. That's why you do things the Chicago way with these people. Like Sean Connery said in the Untouchables: If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, you send his to the MORGUE. Why have all this standoff weaponry if we aren't going to use it? Hell, the expiration date has to be coming up on some of that crap, I say shoot it off where it will do some good.

My scorched earth policy is a wonderful idea. It isn't that it won't work. It's that we will never do it.

P.S.- I'm right there with you on Saudi Arabia.... love ya, HD.

How many do you think we'd have to kill in order for them to give up? You gotta number?

[CID1990]

You must have conveniently forgot that the Soviets were trying to ANNEX the fvcking country, you knucklehead. They weren't exactly dealing with a country and a government that harbored terrorist organizations that were trying to kill Russians. They walked in there without even the courtesy of coooking up a fake reason to do so, and they were there to stay. Plus, you might have also forgotten that we gave the mujaheddin a HUGE hand in that little war. Now, we are missing a golden opportunity to demonstrate how we deal with people who show their gratitude in the way that the Taliban did.

It isn't what he have done in the past or what we are currently doing that gets Americans killed, HD. It is what we aren't prepared to do AND DON'T do that gets Americans killed. You don't recognize that because it doesn't get you laid in your coffee house world. America is one of the softest targets in the damn world, and our enemies know it.

Everybody blames the Bush crowd for shopping out our combat jobs in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to us losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Well, they are damn right about that. And why did we shop out the combat jobs? Because we are too damn squeamish to send in everything we can spare. We don't want casualties. We don't want dead women and children. We don't want to see disturbing images on CNN. The people we are fighting... they see that sh!t EVERY DAY, and they would see it even if there wasn't one fvcking American in Afghanistan. They are numbed to it. The average Afghan would eat the average American for lunch and sh!t them out for dinner. That's why you do things the Chicago way with these people. Like Sean Connery said in the Untouchables: If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, you send his to the MORGUE. Why have all this standoff weaponry if we aren't going to use it? Hell, the expiration date has to be coming up on some of that crap, I say shoot it off where it will do some good.

My scorched earth policy is a wonderful idea. It isn't that it won't work. It's that we will never do it.

P.S.- I'm right there with you on Saudi Arabia.... love ya, HD.

How many do you think we'd have to kill in order for them to give up? You gotta number?

You tell me how many there are and I'll tell you how many we have to kill.

[kalm]

How many do you think we'd have to kill in order for them to give up? You gotta number?

You tell me how many there are and I'll tell you how many we have to kill.

Oh, so it's the kill all muslims strategy? You just took a right turn down Team America lane? Sad.

[houndawg]

Yeah, you're such a hard-headed realist and the rest of us are so backward and insular. Go patronize your fist.

There's just one tiny little problem with your scorched earth, bomb-them-into-the-stone-age policy: it doesn't work. The Soviets tried it for ten years; didn't work. Littered the country with mines that looked like kids toys and blew limbs off of hundreds, thousands, of kids; didn't work. Burned the crops in the field: didn't work. They had plenty of your so-called "stomach" for killing and terrorizing civilians, and they left Afghanistan with their tails tucked.

We were busy slaughtering civilians wholesale in Iraq with "surgical" strikes when we should have been killing bin Laden at Tora Bora. You want to send in the B2s? Send them to Saudi Arabia. I'd be for that, but I suspect that the government and those whom they serve don't have the "stomach" to cross the House of Saud.

You must have conveniently forgot that the Soviets were trying to ANNEX the fvcking country, you knucklehead. They weren't exactly dealing with a country and a government that harbored terrorist organizations that were trying to kill Russians. They walked in there without even the courtesy of coooking up a fake reason to do so, and they were there to stay. Plus, you might have also forgotten that we gave the mujaheddin a HUGE hand in that little war. Now, we are missing a golden opportunity to demonstrate how we deal with people who show their gratitude in the way that the Taliban did.

It isn't what he have done in the past or what we are currently doing that gets Americans killed, HD. It is what we aren't prepared to do AND DON'T do that gets Americans killed. You don't recognize that because it doesn't get you laid in your coffee house world. America is one of the softest targets in the damn world, and our enemies know it.

Everybody blames the Bush crowd for shopping out our combat jobs in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to us losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Well, they are damn right about that. And why did we shop out the combat jobs? Because we are too damn squeamish to send in everything we can spare. We don't want casualties. We don't want dead women and children. We don't want to see disturbing images on CNN. The people we are fighting... they see that sh!t EVERY DAY, and they would see it even if there wasn't one fvcking American in Afghanistan. They are numbed to it. The average Afghan would eat the average American for lunch and sh!t them out for dinner. That's why you do things the Chicago way with these people. Like Sean Connery said in the Untouchables: If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, you send his to the MORGUE. Why have all this standoff weaponry if we aren't going to use it? Hell, the expiration date has to be coming up on some of that crap, I say shoot it off where it will do some good.

My scorched earth policy is a wonderful idea. It isn't that it won't work. It's that we will never do it.

P.S.- I'm right there with you on Saudi Arabia.... love ya, HD.

Now I know you're smoking dope on duty.

Shop out Tora Bora because Americans are too squeamish? I guess that's why the Bush Administration's first move was to smuggle bin Laden's relatives out of the country instead of holding them hostage. The entire country was 100% behind getting Osama bin Laden, collateral damage be damned. Your feeble attempt at revisionism fools nobody, Sidney. Sean Connery You need to get out from behind your desk and into the daylight a little more often. Hell, we could have sent bin Laden's family members to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or one of the many other places where we do all that stuff we're supposedly too squeamish to do.

[CID1990]

You must have conveniently forgot that the Soviets were trying to ANNEX the fvcking country, you knucklehead. They weren't exactly dealing with a country and a government that harbored terrorist organizations that were trying to kill Russians. They walked in there without even the courtesy of coooking up a fake reason to do so, and they were there to stay. Plus, you might have also forgotten that we gave the mujaheddin a HUGE hand in that little war. Now, we are missing a golden opportunity to demonstrate how we deal with people who show their gratitude in the way that the Taliban did.

It isn't what he have done in the past or what we are currently doing that gets Americans killed, HD. It is what we aren't prepared to do AND DON'T do that gets Americans killed. You don't recognize that because it doesn't get you laid in your coffee house world. America is one of the softest targets in the damn world, and our enemies know it.

Everybody blames the Bush crowd for shopping out our combat jobs in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to us losing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Well, they are damn right about that. And why did we shop out the combat jobs? Because we are too damn squeamish to send in everything we can spare. We don't want casualties. We don't want dead women and children. We don't want to see disturbing images on CNN. The people we are fighting... they see that sh!t EVERY DAY, and they would see it even if there wasn't one fvcking American in Afghanistan. They are numbed to it. The average Afghan would eat the average American for lunch and sh!t them out for dinner. That's why you do things the Chicago way with these people. Like Sean Connery said in the Untouchables: If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. If he puts one of yours in the hospital, you send his to the MORGUE. Why have all this standoff weaponry if we aren't going to use it? Hell, the expiration date has to be coming up on some of that crap, I say shoot it off where it will do some good.

My scorched earth policy is a wonderful idea. It isn't that it won't work. It's that we will never do it.

P.S.- I'm right there with you on Saudi Arabia.... love ya, HD.

Now I know you're smoking dope on duty.

Shop out Tora Bora because Americans are too squeamish? I guess that's why the Bush Administration's first move was to smuggle bin Laden's relatives out of the country instead of holding them hostage. The entire country was 100% behind getting Osama bin Laden, collateral damage be damned. Your feeble attempt at revisionism fools nobody, Sidney. Sean Connery You need to get out from behind your desk and into the daylight a little more often. Hell, we could have sent bin Laden's family members to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or one of the many other places where we do all that stuff we're supposedly too squeamish to do.

Wake up, Nancy.

Why do you think we were sold the whole 'on the cheap' military strategy to begin with? I know damn well you are just conveniently forgetting all the liberal gripes about how we did not go into Afghanistan with enough stuff, so we had to shop out to the Northern Alliance. You do remember them, right? You'd be making the converse argument in another thread if it suited you.

Why would an administration feel it necessary to sell the public on a quick, cheap fight?

Because Americans can't be sold on an all-out fight, that's why. Remember the KIA watch? The media trumpeting casualties? It was like a fvcking Times Square countdown, the only thing missing was the flashy lights, and the fact that it was overshadowed by the Iraq count. Remember the Quaker boots on the National Mall? You'd be whining about that right now if it served your argument.

And as for sitting behind a desk... I spent more than my time in two war zones outside the wire you REMF pogue. One of those was Baghdad. So don't talk to me about sitting behind a goddamn desk unless you're talking about the whore underneath it.

[AZGrizFan]

In case you can't read it the list in order from left to right goes:

Ft. Hood Casualties, 9/11 casualties, US Casualties in Afghanistan/Iraq, civilian casualties in Afghanistan, civilian casualties in Iraq

A MILLION civilian casualties?

Dude, you're like a turd in the punchbowl. There ain't no fuckin' WAY there's been 1,000,000 civilians killed during this misguided war.



THIS source says 106,000 and they're counting EVERYTHING...roadside bombs, Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence...EVERYTHING.

When you post shit like your chart you weaken your already tenuous hold on reality even further.

[AZGrizFan]

Exaggerated claims, substandard research, and a disservice to truth
ORB's "million Iraqi deaths" survey seriously flawed, new study shows
1 ILCS P.54 (UNDP), IFHS (WHO)

There have been several survey-based attempts to roughly estimate the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the 2003 invasion and subsequent conflict. It is unfortunate that the most careful and well-resourced survey work in this area (from the UNDP and WHO)1 has been scarcely visible, while the most flawed and inadequate work has dominated public discourse. This has been largely due to the shocking (but ultimately numbing) effect of their hugely exaggerated death toll figures.

Iraq Body Count (IBC) applied an early and so far unanswered set of reality checks to the Johns Hopkins survey published in the Lancet in October 2006, a paper which has recently been comprehensively discredited in a new study by Prof. Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University. Even among the generally inexact survey results for deaths in Iraq the "Lancet estimate" was an extreme outlier, asserting 450,000 more deaths from violence than the much larger WHO-funded study that estimated 151,000 such deaths by July 2006. The only evidence that appeared to support the Lancet finding was published by a polling company, Opinion Research Business (ORB), which estimated 1 million violent Iraqi deaths by August 2007.

In a meticulous and detailed analysis4 of ORB's survey, IBC researcher Josh Dougherty and Spagat have laid to rest any notion that ORB's massive estimate is even nominally sound, let alone capable of providing validation for another outlier. The press release to their study, published in Survey Research Methods (Vol. 4, No. 1, 2010) is reproduced below. In an environment whose most notable feature is a shameful paucity of information, exposing another survey into Iraqi deaths as specious is a regrettable but necessary task. Such inflated, and all too carelessly adopted, estimates trivialise the already documented (and tragically high level of) deaths about which the world still knows far too little. Nor do they contribute, even in broad outline, to the work that lies ahead: the establishment of a comprehensive, locally-verifiable, detailed truth, painstakingly pieced together, death by death, name by name, recording each and every casualty of this conflict. The pressing need is for more truth rooted in real experience, not the manipulation of numbers disconnected from reality.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/b ... rated-orb/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[houndawg]

Now I know you're smoking dope on duty.

Shop out Tora Bora because Americans are too squeamish? I guess that's why the Bush Administration's first move was to smuggle bin Laden's relatives out of the country instead of holding them hostage. The entire country was 100% behind getting Osama bin Laden, collateral damage be damned. Your feeble attempt at revisionism fools nobody, Sidney. Sean Connery You need to get out from behind your desk and into the daylight a little more often. Hell, we could have sent bin Laden's family members to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or one of the many other places where we do all that stuff we're supposedly too squeamish to do.

Wake up, Nancy.

Why do you think we were sold the whole 'on the cheap' military strategy to begin with? I know damn well you are just conveniently forgetting all the liberal gripes about how we did not go into Afghanistan with enough stuff, so we had to shop out to the Northern Alliance. You do remember them, right? You'd be making the converse argument in another thread if it suited you.

Why would an administration feel it necessary to sell the public on a quick, cheap fight?

Because Americans can't be sold on an all-out fight, that's why. Remember the KIA watch? The media trumpeting casualties? It was like a fvcking Times Square countdown, the only thing missing was the flashy lights, and the fact that it was overshadowed by the Iraq count. Remember the Quaker boots on the National Mall? You'd be whining about that right now if it served your argument.

And as for sitting behind a desk... I spent more than my time in two war zones outside the wire you REMF pogue. One of those was Baghdad. So don't talk to me about sitting behind a goddamn desk unless you're talking about the whore underneath it.

For the simple fact that in response to the WTC attack we sent 90% of the troops we deployed to the wrong fcvking country, that's why. The whole country was behind going to Afghanistan, or are you going to try to tell us that isn't true?


More than your time outside the wire in two war zones? You volunteered, stop whining.

[CID1990]

Wake up, Nancy.

Why do you think we were sold the whole 'on the cheap' military strategy to begin with? I know damn well you are just conveniently forgetting all the liberal gripes about how we did not go into Afghanistan with enough stuff, so we had to shop out to the Northern Alliance. You do remember them, right? You'd be making the converse argument in another thread if it suited you.

Why would an administration feel it necessary to sell the public on a quick, cheap fight?

Because Americans can't be sold on an all-out fight, that's why. Remember the KIA watch? The media trumpeting casualties? It was like a fvcking Times Square countdown, the only thing missing was the flashy lights, and the fact that it was overshadowed by the Iraq count. Remember the Quaker boots on the National Mall? You'd be whining about that right now if it served your argument.

And as for sitting behind a desk... I spent more than my time in two war zones outside the wire you REMF pogue. One of those was Baghdad. So don't talk to me about sitting behind a goddamn desk unless you're talking about the whore underneath it.

For the simple fact that in response to the WTC attack we sent 90% of the troops we deployed to the wrong fcvking country, that's why. The whole country was behind going to Afghanistan, or are you going to try to tell us that isn't true?


More than your time outside the wire in two war zones? You volunteered, stop whining.

You're damn straight I volunteered. That's about the only true, non-fvcktard thing you've written in this whole thread.

I'm volunteering to go back next tour, too.

[houndawg]

For the simple fact that in response to the WTC attack we sent 90% of the troops we deployed to the wrong fcvking country, that's why. The whole country was behind going to Afghanistan, or are you going to try to tell us that isn't true?


More than your time outside the wire in two war zones? You volunteered, stop whining.

You're damn straight I volunteered. That's about the only true, non-fvcktard thing you've written in this whole thread.

I'm volunteering to go back next tour, too.

No, I was right about sending 90% of the troops to the wrong country, too.



Good luck. Seriously.

[native]

George Friedman writes on Afghanistan in STRATFOR:

"...while the military’s top generals and senior civilian leadership are responsible for providing the president with sound, clearheaded advice on all military matters including the highest levels of grand strategy, they are ultimately responsible for the pursuit of military objectives to which the commander-in-chief directs them. Generals must think about how to win the war they are fighting. Presidents must think about whether the war is worth fighting...."

"...Nietzsche wrote that, 'The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place.' The stated U.S. goal in Afghanistan was the destruction of al Qaeda. While al Qaeda as it existed in 2001 has certainly been disrupted and degraded, al Qaeda’s evolution and migration means that disrupting and degrading it — to say nothing of destroying it — can no longer be achieved by waging a war in Afghanistan...."

"...Thus far, the United States has chosen to carry on fighting the war in Afghanistan. As al Qaeda has fled Afghanistan, the overall political goal for the United States in the country has evolved to include the creation of a democratic and uncorrupt Afghanistan. It is not clear that anyone knows how to do this, particularly given that most Afghans consider the ruling government of President Hamid Karzai — with which the United States is allied — as the heart of the corruption problem..."

"...withdrawing from Afghanistan carries its own strategic and political costs ... The strategic problem is that simply terminating the war after nine years would destabilize the Islamic world. ... America would be seen as having lost the war, the prestige of radical Islamists and thereby the foundation of the ideology that underpins their movement would surge, and this could destabilize regimes and undermine American interests..."

"...Obama’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent. This is not unprecedented, but it means he is politically weak. One of the charges against him, fair or not, is that he is inherently anti-war by background and so not fully committed to the war effort. Where a Republican would face charges of being a warmonger, which would make withdrawal easier, Obama faces charges of being too soft. Since a president must maintain political support to be effective, withdrawal becomes even harder. Therefore, strategic analysis aside, the president is not going to order a complete withdrawal of all combat forces any time soon — the national (and international) political alignment won’t support such a step. At the same time, remaining in Afghanistan is unlikely to achieve any goal and leaves potential rivals like China and Russia freer rein...."

Excerpts from "Pakistan and the U.S. Exit From Afghanistan" are republished with permission of STRATFOR.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100927 ... fghanistan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

[kalm]

Exaggerated claims, substandard research, and a disservice to truth
ORB's "million Iraqi deaths" survey seriously flawed, new study shows
1 ILCS P.54 (UNDP), IFHS (WHO)

There have been several survey-based attempts to roughly estimate the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the 2003 invasion and subsequent conflict. It is unfortunate that the most careful and well-resourced survey work in this area (from the UNDP and WHO)1 has been scarcely visible, while the most flawed and inadequate work has dominated public discourse. This has been largely due to the shocking (but ultimately numbing) effect of their hugely exaggerated death toll figures.

Iraq Body Count (IBC) applied an early and so far unanswered set of reality checks to the Johns Hopkins survey published in the Lancet in October 2006, a paper which has recently been comprehensively discredited in a new study by Prof. Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University. Even among the generally inexact survey results for deaths in Iraq the "Lancet estimate" was an extreme outlier, asserting 450,000 more deaths from violence than the much larger WHO-funded study that estimated 151,000 such deaths by July 2006. The only evidence that appeared to support the Lancet finding was published by a polling company, Opinion Research Business (ORB), which estimated 1 million violent Iraqi deaths by August 2007.

In a meticulous and detailed analysis4 of ORB's survey, IBC researcher Josh Dougherty and Spagat have laid to rest any notion that ORB's massive estimate is even nominally sound, let alone capable of providing validation for another outlier. The press release to their study, published in Survey Research Methods (Vol. 4, No. 1, 2010) is reproduced below. In an environment whose most notable feature is a shameful paucity of information, exposing another survey into Iraqi deaths as specious is a regrettable but necessary task. Such inflated, and all too carelessly adopted, estimates trivialise the already documented (and tragically high level of) deaths about which the world still knows far too little. Nor do they contribute, even in broad outline, to the work that lies ahead: the establishment of a comprehensive, locally-verifiable, detailed truth, painstakingly pieced together, death by death, name by name, recording each and every casualty of this conflict. The pressing need is for more truth rooted in real experience, not the manipulation of numbers disconnected from reality.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/b ... rated-orb/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The numbers are definitely in dispute, including IBC's:

Criticism
The IBC has been the most often cited source on civilian deaths in Iraq,[14] but it has also received criticism from many sides. Some critics have focused on potential bias of sources. Others have raised concerns about the difficulty of distinguishing civilians from combatants. Others have criticized it for over or undercounting.

Some critics, often on the political right, claimed that the IBC numbers were an overcount, and that the numbers were suspect due to the antiwar bias of the IBC members. For example; the 26 July 2005 National Review article, "Bad Counts. An unquestioning media."[15]

Others, often on the political left,[citation needed] criticized media and government willingness to quote IBC figures more approvingly than the much higher estimate coming from the Lancet study[16] that came out in October 2004.

Journalists included Lila Guterman,[17][18] Andrew Cockburn,[19] John Pilger, and George Monbiot[20]

In a 27 January 2005 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education Lila Guterman wrote:

"The Lancet released the paper on October 29, the Friday before the election, when many reporters were busy with political coverage. That day, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune each dedicated only about 400 words to the study and placed the articles inside their front sections, on Pages A4 and A11, respectively. (The news media in Europe gave the study much more play; many newspapers put articles about it on their front pages.) In a short article about the study on Page A8, The New York Times noted that the Iraq Body Count, a project to tally civilian deaths reported in the news media, had put the maximum death toll at around 17,000. The new study, the article said, 'is certain to generate intense controversy.' But the Times has not published any further news articles about the paper."
In late 2005 and early 2006 some on the left began criticizing IBC itself. This criticism of IBC came mainly from the media-watchdog website Media Lens that published four pieces[8][14][21][22] on what they saw as the "massive bias and gaps" reflected in the IBC database and their totals. David Edwards of Media Lens had articles in other publications too.[23]

This view of IBC was based on the belief that IBC figures are extremely low due to pro-US media bias and inadequate reporting due to its heavy (though not exclusive) reliance on Western media sources, which has led some of these critics to claim IBC should be called the "Iraq Western Media Body Count". These biases and inadequacies, they claim, mean IBC's count is low by up to a factor of 10, and that it specifically minimizes the proportion of deaths caused by US forces.

MediaLens article of 26 January 2006[8] states: "First, the dramatic absence of examples of mass killing by US-UK forces suggests that the low IBC toll of civilian deaths in comparison with other studies is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC. Visitors to the site - directed there by countless references in the same media that have acted as sources - are being given a very one-sided picture of who is doing the killing."

Stephen Soldz wrote a 5 February 2006 article titled "When Promoting Truth Obscures the Truth: More on Iraqi Body Count and Iraqi Deaths".[9] It stated: "Of course, in conditions of active rebellion, the safer areas accessible to Western reporters are likely to be those under US/Coalition control, where deaths are, in turn, likely to be due to insurgent attacks. Areas of insurgent control, which are likely to be subject to US and Iraqi government attack, for example most of Anbar province, are simply off-limits to these reporters. Thus, the realities of reporting imply that reporters will be witness to a larger fraction of deaths due to insurgents and a lesser proportion of deaths due to US and Iraqi government forces."

A further claim has been that IBC does little or nothing to correct misuse of their figures by public officials or media organizations. It is claimed that the media often misuse IBC's estimate of the total number dead. It is also claimed that the media use the IBC's estimate in order to ignore or downplay the October 2004 excess mortality study published in the Lancet Medical Journal, which estimated a far higher figure. Critics of IBC argue that the Lancet study is the most accurate estimate so far and is more reliable than IBC's estimate.

The 26 January 2006 MediaLens article[8] stated: "We accept that the IBC editors are sincere and well-intentioned. We accept, also, that they have often made clear that their figures are likely to be an underestimate. But we believe they could have done much more to challenge the cynical exploitation of their figures by journalists and politicians. And they could have done much more to warn visitors to their site of the number and type of gaps in their database."

Other criticism of various kinds came from journalists Stephen Soldz,[9] Dahr Jamail,[24] and Jeff Pflueger[24]

In April 2006 IBC published a lengthy response to their critics entitled "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count".[25] In their reply, IBC argues that their critics have several key facts wrong. IBC argues that while their estimate is likely to be below the full toll, their critics' errors have led the critics to exaggerate the likely extent of such an undercount. Finally, IBC argues, the available evidence does not support their critics' claims of a pro-US bias infecting the IBC database.

[edit] Undercounting
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The IBC states on its website that its count is bound to be low due to limitations in reporting. IBC's critics claim, though, that the IBC does not do enough to indicate what they believe is the full extent of the undercounting.[8][9][14][21][22][24] IBC has directly disputed these claims in a lengthy document on its website[25]

The October 2006 Lancet study[26][27] states: "Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance [used by the IBC] recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods [used in the Lancet studies]." However, in an April 2006 article the IBC had described an example comparing itself to the 2004 United Nations Development Programme Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS).[28][29]

The Lancet report uses the population estimates drawn from the ILCS study, while not mentioning its estimate of war-related deaths. IBC contends that ILCS is a more reliable indicator of violent deaths than the Lancet study, and suggests a much lower number than the Lancet study. However, a supplement to the Lancet study published separately by its authors, as well as subsequent interviews with one of Lancet's authors have disputed the methodology and results of the ILCS study. Jon Pedersen, author of the ILCS study, has also disputed the methodology and results of the Lancet study. For more info on this controversy see the sections titled "Criticisms" and "UNDP ILCS study compared to Lancet study" in Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties.

The 2006 Lancet study[26] also states: "In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population-based estimates. Between 1960 and 1990, newspaper accounts of political deaths in Guatemala correctly reported over 50% of deaths in years of low violence but less than 5% in years of highest violence."

The Lancet reference used is to Patrick Ball, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer and their 1999 book, State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection.[30] From the introduction: "The CIIDH database consists of cases culled from direct testimonies and documentary and press sources."

Chapter 10[31] elaborates, saying that "In the CIIDH project, participating popular organizations collected many of the testimonies long after the time of the killings, when people were less clear about details, especially the identities of all the victims." And says, "Typically, during the collection of testimonies, a surviving witness might provide the names of one or two victims, perhaps close relatives, while estimating the number of other neighbors in the community without giving their names."

They report in chapter 7:[32]

"Figure 7.1 shows that in the CIIDH database, most of the information for human rights violations prior to 1977 comes from press sources. ... Approximately 10,890 cases were coded from the newspapers. Sixty-three percent of the press cases were taken from Prensa Libre, 10 percent from El Gráfico, 8 percent from La Hora and El Impacto respectively, and 6 percent from El Imparcial. The remaining 5 percent is made up by eight other newspapers."
But also in chapter 7 they reported that in later, more violent years:

"When the level of violence increased dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, numbers of reported violations in the press stayed very low. In 1981, one of the worst years of state violence, the numbers fall towards zero. The press reported almost none of the rural violence."
There is a list[33] of figures, tables, and charts in the book that can be used to calculate what percentage of their cases of killings by state forces were reported by 13 Guatemalan newspapers for each year when compared to the testimonies of witnesses (as previously described from chapter 10[31]).

In a 7 November 2004 press release[34] concerning the October 2004 Lancet study[16] the IBC states: "We have always been quite explicit that our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording".

One of the sources used by the media are morgues. Only the central Baghdad area morgue has released figures consistently. While that is the largest morgue in Iraq and in what is often claimed to be the most consistently violent area, the absence of comprehensive morgue figures elsewhere leads to undercounting. IBC makes it clear that, due to these issues, its count will almost certainly be below the full toll in its 'Quick FAQ' on its homepage.

Quote from an IBC note[35]: "The Iraq Body Count (IBC) estimate for x350, like that for x334, was made possible by examination of the detailed data supplied to the Associated Press (AP) by the morgues surveyed in AP's 23 May 2004 survey of Iraqi morgues."

That 23 May 2004 Associated Press article[36] points out the lack of morgue data from many areas of Iraq. Also, it states: "The [Baghdad] figure does not include most people killed in big terrorist bombings, Hassan said. The cause of death in such cases is obvious so bodies are usually not taken to the morgue, but given directly to victims' families. Also, the bodies of killed fighters from groups like the al-Mahdi Army are rarely taken to morgues."

There are more examples of undercounting at Casualties of the Iraq War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iraq Body Count
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Iraq Body Count (IBC) describes itself as “an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks).” [1]

However, as Medialens notes: “In reality, IBC is not primarily an Iraq Body Count, it is not even an Iraq Media Body Count, it is an Iraq Western Media Body Count.” [2]

One of the world’s leading professional epidemiologists, anonymously noted in an email to medialens that:

IBC is run by amateurs. It is easy to calculate the sensitivity of their surveillance system. They would take another list or independent sample, and see the fraction of that sample that appeared in their data base. I have asked them to do this over a year ago, they have not.
There are other databases out there (NCCI being the most complete), they could do a capture-recapture analysis (as lots of experts have been calling for) and see how many people have died but they have not.[3]
On June 15, 2006, Iraq Body Count estimated that between 38,355 to 42,747 civilians have died in Iraq. [4] This came on the same day when it was announced that the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has reached 2,500 with the death of a marine. [5]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... Body_Count" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;[/quote]