Nice little message-sender tool they have set up at Just Foreign Policy.

Here's what I sent to the editor of the Plain Dealer:

Dear Mr. O'Brien:
I wonder if you would apply the reasoning you exhibited in your email exchange with Patrick McElwee to the Holocaust?

After all, we will never have an exact count of the people killed by the Nazis, no list of names beyond a partial list, and any number we can offer up must, by necessity, be considered only an extrapolation or estimate.

And, as you write to Mr. McElwee: "Estimation is not confirmation. Extrapolation is not confirmation."

Some circumstances do not permit exact counts of the dead. How many people were killed in Cambodia by Pol Pot? Have you seen a list of the vicitims' names? And yet would you deny that millions died there?

We are facing death on that scale in Iraq. We will never know the exact extent of the death and suffering we have caused there, but the two studies cited by Mr. McElwee, using very different methods, arrived at similar estimates. This is significant. I suspect you would see its significance if you weren't blinded by your own ideological biases.

I don't think that it's true we couldn't get accurate counts. In better times, there are things like a census, which most governments administer. Assuming that there is peace, and that there haven't been wholesale pogroms (which I think is more or less accurate), this is a mechanism whereby we could get a more-or-less exact count of the dead during this period, and probably some accounting of manner of death, etc. It's probably too grisly for anyone to have any interest in after the fact, though.

It's really too complimentary to this guy to call him conservative--his attitude was belligerent and stupid. There's no pretense of any sort of argument (and you can make some arguments against the one million figure). To him it's purely a matter of people grinding axes and since he obviously rejects these numbers because of his own ideology, he thinks everyone "reasons" the same way.

Also we shouldn’t forget the estimated half million deaths of children resulting from the sanctions against Iraq. And of course Madeleine Albright when confronted with this estimate said “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.”

Since Albright feels this way I like to call her Mad Albright for short. And apparently it is always worth it especially when it is other people who are required to do the dying and our own fat bottoms don’t have to move from that comfy chair.

This is perhaps the biggest difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats are ever so much more polite about slaughtering people than the Republicans.

“Throughout his eight years in office, Clinton applied a ruthless sanctions regime that took the lives of at least half a million Iraqi children. He subjected Iraq (with British help) to the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, ostensibly to protect the no-fly zones established in 1991. In 1993, he ordered US warplanes to destroy Iraqi intelligence centers in retaliation for the attempted assassination of George Bush Sr. In 1998, he signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which made regime change official US policy, and did so explicitly on the basis of the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. In December of that year, US forces--with British assistance but without UN consent--mounted a ferocious four day aerial assault on Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The pretext was Iraq's refusal to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors, some of whom had been suborned by the Clinton administration to act as spies for US intelligence.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/marqusee11212005.html

I just visited Tim Lambert's blog Deltoid for the latest Iraq casualty figure debate and someone there points out ORB has taken all reference to its "one million dead" poll off of its website. Perhaps they think something is wrong with it, but whatever the cause, they should have the decency to tell people what the problem is.

So the Cleveland editor may turn out to be accidentally right after all. I say accidentally, because he gave no reasons.

Well, obviously a phone poll of roughly a thousand people isn't the best way to estimate the number of people killed in Iraq since our invasion. But what alternative is there? The U.S. and Iraqi governments have no incentive to do accurate counts, both have been caught covering up information about civilian casualties, and even if they had the best intentions, Iraq is a dangerous place to do anything, so travelling around the country counting the dead isn't first on anybody's list of priorities.

By itself, the phone poll could be easily dismissed. But the fact that it comes out with the same order of magnitude of deaths predicted by the much more rigorous Lancet study is meaningful.

A recent poll showed that the average response from Americans when asked how many Iraqis have died since the invasion is "about 10,000". In that context, what's the sense of debating whether we killed eight hundred thousand people, or a million people, or a million and a half people? Americans believe in a ridiculously low Iraqi "body count" for the same reason that so many Americans still believe Saddam was behind 9/11: because the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and his media compatriots are completely failing to do their jobs.

A thousand people is more than enough for the statistics to work out, if they got a random sample. If you look at the distribution of deaths, there is a thin tail - most of the deaths are in the 'one or two' category. So, if you believe that a respectable polling organization was capable of conducting a representative, random phone poll of Iraqis (which I'm not qualified to answer), then the study is, I think, pretty good.

SteveB, you may have missed my comment just above yours--ORB has apparently pulled their references to that mortality poll offline. There's no explanation given (and I've just sent them a rather nasty email about their behavior--you don't claim to have evidence of one million deaths and then pull back without explanation.)

Of course there may be some innocent explanation and maybe it'll all be back online tomorrow, but right now it looks more than a little weird.

So the Cleveland editor may turn out to be accidentally right after all. I say accidentally, because he gave no reasons."

Donald, don't give him any credit. He writes for my local daily and he's an ass (and that's being really, really kind). He probably dismissed the Lancet study, too. No matter how many deaths a study cited, he would question it, because to him if the numbers fall short of 50,000, or 600,000, or a half-million children, it's therefore unremarkable.

But the ORB site should be monitored to see what they say. However, if they change it to 900,000 instead of a million, does that make an ethical, moral, constitutional difference. Of course not.

So the Cleveland editor may turn out to be accidentally right after all. I say accidentally, because he gave no reasons."

Donald, don't give him any credit. He writes for my local daily and he's an ass (and that's being really, really kind). He probably dismissed the Lancet study, too. No matter how many deaths a study cited, he would question it, because to him if the numbers fall short of 50,000, or 600,000, or a half-million children, it's therefore unremarkable.

But the ORB site should be monitored to see what they say. However, if they change it to 900,000 instead of a million, does that make an ethical, moral, constitutional difference. Of course not.

"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, Mr. President. 10 million, tops."
Strangelovian, as always, but not funny.
But, as "they" say, we must move on.
Iranian deaths? Half a million, tops.

What was that great French movie where the inmates run the asylym? We're here, ladies and germs. As my Sergeant at Fort Hood used to yell every morning, "Drop your cocks and grab your socks." See you, somewhere, somehow.

ORB has put its Iraq mortality poll back online. They say they want to do further surveys of the rural population and update their results in October.

Which is very reasonable, but I wish they'd said that earlier, rather than just taking their story offline.

Catherine, I believe you. Just reading that exchange shows that guy was a jerk--if he'd been accidentally right about the ORB poll it would have been sheer dumb luck.

Ted - you're right, doubling it IS half-assed. The Iraq Body Count figure is about 75,000 - that constitutes numbers that someone reported on. That is, a Western reporter actually heard about, investigated, and gave the details of an attack. Given the lack of mobility of the press and the amount of violence in Iraq, it's reasonable to assume this will be a small minority of attacks - expecting that methodology to get one out of every two attacks seems weak. And, since there really are two independent methods that yield similar figures, why wouldn't you believe the ~1M number? Can you cite any estimate that has attempted to be comprehensive that comes up with a different number?

But seriously, why does it matter aside from the politics of it? Knowing the number won't bring the dead back. Knowing the number won't stop the next one. Was Vietnam 3M? To whom does it matter and why? So we get the history right?

It's disrespectful of the dead to not even bother to count them. I realize being disrespected is somewhat less bad than being dead, but still, we're responsible for a large part of these deaths, and heaping indifference to the scale of our mass murder on top of the mass murder itself is, IMO, not good.

In other cases, such as the Argentine dirty war or murders by the police in South Africa, it was considered very important by the victims families and the society at large that some serious effort was made to account for all the victims. And, of course, there's the holocaust, where few would dare to take a "what does it matter how many died?" attitude.

I stand by my half-assed comment. We tend to care for political purposes. If we cared based on morality we wouldn't have Blackwater fusing children to their mother's bodies. We'd be prosecuting them not providing them immunity.

Politics.

That's why the Holocaust museum is so close to the White House and Congress.

Me? I'd have put the Holocaust Museum somewhere in Europe, but that's just me. Rudy has the right idea, though -- Israel in NATO. Yeah, baby!

@sauerbah,

Don't have good numbers from anywhere, that's why I said it was a half-assed guess. I'm not expecting the definitive number anywhere, but if you were counting where would you start. At the Highway of Death gratuitous million dollar minutes? Would you count the shepherd kids bombed by no-fly patrols? If we count the deaths exacerbated by this war, how about the deaths exacerbated by sanctions?

It's just an ephemeral cloud of pink mist. Or brownish pink mist.

If we cared based on morality we wouldn't have Blackwater fusing children to their mother's bodies.

Rather sloppy use of the word "we" there. The people who care aren't doing the killing, and the people who are doing the killing don't care. It's worth drawing a line between the two.

And yes, the holocaust death count has been mined endlessly as a handy justification for any and all Israeli crimes (see Dershowitz, Alan). That's not an argument against counting the dead.

Imagine if a poll of German citizens found that their median estimate for the number killed in the holocaust was "about 60,000". Would that be cause for concern? Would it be a still greater cause for concern if Germany was the most powerful military power on the planet? I think it would.

In fact, the February AP poll that found that Americans, on average, think about 10,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion has a nice historical precendent. A similar poll taken sometime in the 1980's asked college students how many Vietnamese were killed in the Vietnam war. Their estimate was "around 50,000." I think their ignorance, and American ignorance in general, might have made it a bit easier to start this war, and the next one.

Cris
Yes, thanks.

SteveB

Some of us want the Holocaust remembered and taught in history courses, not mined--for poltics or money. Are some doing that, yup. But the distinction needs to be made and maintained.

Estimates by people usually are pretty ignorant. Sometimes malicious. "We couldn't have killed THAT many..." (Did you see the photos of frolicking SS men/women at Auschwitz in yesterday's NYT? Not surprising to anyone who read the testimony of Hoess or the Auschwitz trial manuscripts (Frankfurt, 1963-64)

Does anyone in this country give a damn about the Indians? From what I can tell--having been on a reservation and doing something--hardly. We ought to have a Day of Shame annually, and put $36.4 billion aside for the first Making Life Bearable for Native Americans Program. as much of a chance as an Unabomber Postage Stamp.

@SteveB,

I'm being intentionally sloppy because I *am* using the word "we" freely, just like you use the word "Germans" to sum up Germans in general.

"We" matters because it's how we look to the world. Monolithic, despite small differences at the edges. I referenced Clark's appearance on Rheme because he's illustrative of the Democrats view on this as well (i.e, the lessons learned in the last 6 years and where that takes us in the next conflict.) So if we put Republicans + Democrats together, we get a close approximation of "we" morality. I DO understand that ATRs don't swing like the average Democrat, but the question is, does is matter relative to subjective truth.

Democrats will come up with a death number. It will be questionable. Republicans will come up with a number. It will be questionable. The Europeans will. It'll be questionable. The Shiites will. The Sunnies will. Etc. Only the narrative will be important.

It will not get resolved just because it's counted and when it does get counted it will be used for political posturing (i.e. see my example about the architecture of the mall).

Call me an existential sap, and I shouldn't care once I'm dead, but to have my death used for a political statistic is really THE final indignity.

That's not an argument against counting the dead.

Come now. If counting the dead is used to create a specifically inflammatory political frame, then I think it is.

But I accept that's just me seeing the overpreening focus on counts as a form of political manipulation.

Steve B.: My guess is YOU are STILL PAYING for this war and will continue to do so, therefore the "WE" sticks.

to have my death used for a political statistic is really THE final indignity.

If someone points to the millions killed in the holocaust and says "never again!" in arguing that we should act to stop the genocide in, say, Darfur, is that an "indignity" to the victims of the holocaust?

If we cite the 3700 U.S. troops killed in Iraq to say "Not one more - end the war!" are we "using" their deaths as a "political statistic"?

Should Cindy Sheehan remain silent, lest she risk "politicizing" her son's death?

Many on the right would say yes. For them, the only respectful response to those 3700 deaths is to remain silent, while the number ticks upward.

You write as if politics itself is something distasteful. Just look at your language: "political posturing", "inflammatory political frame" or "political manipulation".

But politics is what the citizens of a democracy engage in when they're trying to determine what their government should or should not do. Pointing to the victims of any tragedy to argue that future tragedies of the same sort should be prevented is inherently political. And the fact that it's political does not make it any less legitimate.

Mike Meyer:
Some guy splatters the brains of Iraqi civilians all over a street in Baghdad, and you don't see any point in making a distinction between him and someone like me, who didn't splatter anybody's brains all over a street in Baghdad,or anywhere else for that matter, because I pay my taxes?

Oh well. I guess we're all equally guilty, or equally innocent, or something. Might as well cancel those war-crimes trials.

Meh.

Look -- the number of 1M is somewhat sticking in my brain. When does it start? Why does it start there? Etc.

Let's do some rough math to see if it realistically works out. Let's use 4.5 years just for the heck of it.

3700/4.5 years = ~2.3 Americans per day.

1,000,000/4.5 years = ~618 Iraqis per day.

That number seems high to me is all. If I consider my half-assed number of ~120,000 it comes out to:

120,000/4.5 years = ~74 Iraqis per day.

I'm not a fan of the media but that number is roughly approximate to the ups and down in Iraq that's reported here and there when the news is otherwise slow. It's simply a number that I can get my head around.

Now, regarding the comparison to the counting of the Holocaust. When the US and/or Iraqi diaspora take the systematic approach to document each missing Iraqi, and frame it in terms of genocide, let's discuss it. But I don't see that systematic count ever occurring in this case for a variety of (mainly economic) reasons, hence my lack of expectation except to frame an argument in a manner friendly to one side or another. I could be wrong; we may in fact spend huge amounts of time and money counting somewhere in the future, I just doubt it seeing that "body counts" weren't something that we measured at the beginning of this adventure.

Might as well cancel those war-crimes trials.

Which war crimes trials are you speaking about? We haven't signed up to the ICC for a reason. And even if we did; so what? Who'd enforce it?

You write as if politics itself is something distasteful. Just look at your language: "political posturing", "inflammatory political frame" or "political manipulation".

I have no issue whatsoever using those terms to describe Democrats or Republicans, particularly because they each strive to frame themselves in moral terms now -- primary success metrics being roadkill far, far in the rearview mirror.

I have to say I'm tremendously enjoying Dennis Perrin's Warmonger serial. How do you think it'll turn out? A surprise ending perhaps?

Steve B. Join the crowd. WE are ALL just as guilty as that soldier WE PAY to blow those brains out. HISTORY will not write that soldier's name, it will write "THE AMERICAN PEOPLE" did this. And if YOU are religious, well, GOD sees this brutal shit WE ARE PAYING to have done, too.

WE are ALL just as guilty as that soldier WE PAY to blow those brains out.

So will you be turning yourself in to the nearest authorities?

And in the unlikely event that the US actually prosecutes Mr. brain-sprayer (or any other military criminal), will you be protesting outside the courtoom, saying, "Take me! I'm just as guilty as him!"

If not, then you're just spouting empty rhetoric.

Steve B.: I'm in Wyoming. THE ONLY authorities for the next 1000 miles in any direction are JUST AS GUILTY as YOU OR ME.( conflict of interest)Don't worry, Steve, WE will ALL be standing in line for paybacks when the time comes. EVERYTHING has a price, EVERYBODY gots to pay, this one IS costly.