[Peace-discuss] Re: misgivings on Iraq War: A Four Year Reflection

[Stuart Levy]

[Note, I'm trimming the long long Cc list -- removing some people I'm pretty
sure are on the peace-discuss list already -- and including just peace-discuss,
not peace.]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 04:06:55AM -0700, Chuck Minne wrote:
> I have learned that estimated numbers on either side of an issue are not to
> be trusted, and that the peace folks can inflate them with the best. Now
> while 700,000 might be a stunning number for preaching to the choir, I
> don't think preaching to the choir is the point here. At least I presume
> the point is proselytization, and for that, IMO 100,000 is a better number
> (guesstimate.)  But candor might not be expected and be considered a sign of
> weakness, so maybe 2,000,000 is better. Wishy-washy?

We should use the best estimate available, and that is indeed approximately
650,000 Iraqi excess deaths between March 2003 and July 2006, according
to a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health mortality survey published
last fall, which sampled (interviewed) clusters of households at randomly
selected locations all over Iraq.   They did not pick this number off the
tops of their heads.

See this summary:
    http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html

>   (Just from the numbers' standpoint, 700,000 is roughly 400 per day. I don't think that has happened. But, who knows? I sure don't.)

Clearly there are many, many more people dying in Iraq
(by military action, by other Iraqis, by lack of public health, ...)
than those we hear about directly in the news.
Over 90% of those killed were reported to have died by violence.

Clearly too, if the best estimate was ~650000 eight months ago, it should be
higher now; but in the absence of a sound basis for saying how much higher,
I think we should still cite the Johns Hopkins figure when reporting
the lethal effect of this war.

> Pete Rhomberg <rhomberger3000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>   The ratio is much higher: currently, the Iraqi death tool is estimated 
> at at least 700,000 (with over 1 million additional Iraqis displaced). 
> US Death toll is a little over 3,300 (I'm sorry I don't have the exact 
> figure).
> 
> Chuck Minne wrote:
> > This seems like a nice idea to me. What is the death ratio? Something 
> > like 100,000 to 3,000 or 100 to 3? 


... While I'm posting this, I'll stick my oar in the flagmire too.
I think it'd be a fine thing if the peace movement were to work on
reclaiming the American flag as a symbol representing the
American ideals we'd like our country to follow, and not just as a symbol
used by the Right of American power and faultless good, as it has been.

I agree with Carl Estabrook that intention alone isn't enough to 
reclaim it.  If we show a flag out of context, it will likely not be
taken as we mean it.  But I'd happily carry an American flag along with
a Peace Is Patriotic sign.  

   Stuart