Author: Jonathan Schwarz

Almost completely forgotten now is the November, 2002 estimate by Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, that an invasion of Iraq and subsequent civil war “could cause half a million deaths.”

And rightfully so, since subsequent events have completely discredited them. This is from a British polling company working in Iraq:

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

The Los Angeles Times writes about it here. Note the results are in line with Just Foreign Policy’s attempt to extrapolate from the second Lancet study.

(via)

• Tony Karon: “Is a Jewish Glasnost Coming to America?: Despite a Backlash, Many Jews Are Questioning Israel”

• Tom Engelhardt runs his third TomDispatch piece looking at Iraq via numbers, “Progress by the Numbers.” Previously in the series: “Iraq by the Numbers” and “Escalation by the Numbers.”

Be sure to check out Laura Rozen’s posts about the strange case of Alexis Debat, here, here, here and here.

It’s a particularly shocking lesson in the fact that, in terms of providing accurate information, the media is an incredibly rickety contraption. The reason for this, of course, is that the media doesn’t exist to provide accurate information. It exists to make as much money as possible for its owners. It does an excellent job at that.

And yet people—well, upper middle class white people—have a deeply held commitment to the idea the media exists to be accurate, and in fact does give you a tolerably accurate view of the world. Why this bizarre delusion persists is an interesting question.

Time to rerun this.

Sometimes I argue with friends who believe the people who run America are utterly indifferent to human life. I tell them: “You couldn’t be more wrong. If you made up a list of the top 1000 priorities of the people who run America, human life might come in as high as 997th.”

I was pleased to see my perspective validated in George Packer’s recent New Yorker article about Iraq:

David Kilcullen, an Australian counter-insurgency adviser who served on Petraeus’s staff…drew up a list of core American interests in Iraq, which he later gave to senior officials at the White House and the State Department. In order of priority, the list contained the following items: maintain the flow of oil and gas in the region; prevent the establishment of an Al Qaeda safe haven in Iraq; contain Iranian influence; prevent a regional war; prevent a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of Rwanda; and restore American credibility in the region and in the world (which Kilcullen called “the master interest,” and which doing all the others would go a long way toward achieving).

You see? They do care! Human life is on the list! Right there after their four higher priorities! Of which the top one is oil!

The best part is that mere paragraphs later, Packer expresses this concern:

Even in narrow strategic terms American interests would be harmed by large-scale slaughter in Iraq. The spectacle, televised around the world, would deepen the feeling that America is indifferent to human, especially Muslim, life.

Yes, it would be terrible if the world were to get such a distorted picture of America. We must make them understand how we really feel: that human life is wonderful, as long as it doesn’t conflict with all our higher priorities.