And yes, I certainly agree that an attempt to overstate the numbers without anything to fall back would be folly from a culturo-political perspective , but there are numbers to fall back on here.
Btw, I have a reference from a down home, good ol' boy newspaper as well, not "just" the al-jazeera one, so at least as far as that goes, I can always turn around and blame them...<g>
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20050711-1850-un-conflictdeaths.html
As it is, I'm certainly open to revising the numbers in whichever way most accurately reflects the reality of the situation, so if there's something solid to go on. As well, the numbers from the Iraq Body Count website haven't changed in close to a week now, and I have to wonder if the reason for the delay might not be this very same controversy.
Gary W.
Michael Pugliese wrote:
>
> Aargh.From that webpg.
> Question: 9000 US Dead in Iraq
> Submitted by iowaseeds on Tue, 06/28/2005 - 17:10.
>
> 9K US dead?
> Is this claim true? Is Brian Harring a reliable source?
>
> Subject: 9K US dead? is this lie impeachment-worthy?
>
> Link to story
>
> Daily Kos ran that. These Kossacks, were hornswoggled by those extreme
> rightists around Willis Carto at The Barnes Review.
> http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/index.php?module=v4bJournal&func=journal_view&uid=3&mode=detail
> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/18/115832/501
> 9000 Dead GIs In Iraq?
>
> As a forwarded msg. from Stan Goff 'sez, about another inflated, bogus #,
> http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/msg68272.html
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stanley Goff
>
> Hey Carlos,
>
> I hope you will send this along to the list, because this is important.
>
> These figures are NOT possible, and very well may be a disinformaiton
> campaign to do some Dan Rather judo on the movement.
>
> I know we all want to catch the bad guys red-handed at something that
> is the equivalent of a public relations tsunami, but this ain't it.
>
> (1) If there were this many dead out of theater, there would be a
> clamor by the families, who look up the names of the dead on published
> lists. No such clamor has happened. Military communities are
> tight-tight, and these families compare notes all the time. The idea
> that they could be deceived on this scale is quite simply not possible.
>
> (2) In trauma cases, the critical period is usually the first 24
> hours, and after that the post-injury fatality rates FALL sharply...
> while this "report" sugggests they have risen at four or five times the
> rate.
>
> The left will be well served to beware of body-count politics that
> tempts us to inflate numbers the way Centcom inlfates theirs with
> regard to "insurgents."
>
> Stay well,
>
> Stan
> http://stangoff.com
>
> Truth is bad enough, why exaggerate?
>
>
--
Gary Williams
"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." - John Stuart Mill
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