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Food for thought: Iraqi Mortality Rate
Many versions of this article are going around, some discussing the survey methodology. It looks to be that before the American invasion, the mortality rate of Iraqis was 5 out of every 1000. Since the American invasion, we are up to 12.3 out of every 1000. Essentially, living in an American invaded Iraq is twice as bad for an Iraqi's health as living under Saddam's regime.
You can read more here, or do you own google search.
An excerpt:
I've long been intrigued by the seemingly limitless human capacity for inconsistency. The deaths of 3,000 people, mostly Americans, at the hands of terrorists in 2001 dramatically altered the course of human events, but the deaths of 3,000 Haitians from last summer's killer hurricanes hardly registered in the public's consciousness. We regard the 9-11 attacks as one of history's greatest crimes - yet the millions who have died in Sudan, Rwanda, The Ivory Coast and elsewhere in equally willful attacks merit, for many of us, little more than a sigh.
There are countless examples of our inconsistent regard of large-scale death. The number of victims most often associated with World War II is 6 million - the number of Jews massacred. Yet we often overlook the 16 million civilians in the Soviet Union alone who perished in the war.
'Simply a byproduct'
The British medical journal Lancet in October published a study placing the number of Iraqi deaths since the American invasion at between 8,000 and 194,000 - with the most likely number statistically being the midpoint, 98,000. Yet I've heard many Americans dismiss Iraqi civilian casualties as a mere byproduct of war.
So, what have we learned today, kids? It's okay to kill if you don't make a big production about it. At this rate, we've acquired about 200,000 eyes for 6,000 eyes (over 8,000 if you count our American Soldiers' deaths).
I'm sure God is proud of us.
To paraphrase a spoof interview of God in The Onion, "What part of 'thou shalt not kill' do you not understand?"
You can read more here, or do you own google search.
An excerpt:
I've long been intrigued by the seemingly limitless human capacity for inconsistency. The deaths of 3,000 people, mostly Americans, at the hands of terrorists in 2001 dramatically altered the course of human events, but the deaths of 3,000 Haitians from last summer's killer hurricanes hardly registered in the public's consciousness. We regard the 9-11 attacks as one of history's greatest crimes - yet the millions who have died in Sudan, Rwanda, The Ivory Coast and elsewhere in equally willful attacks merit, for many of us, little more than a sigh.
There are countless examples of our inconsistent regard of large-scale death. The number of victims most often associated with World War II is 6 million - the number of Jews massacred. Yet we often overlook the 16 million civilians in the Soviet Union alone who perished in the war.
'Simply a byproduct'
The British medical journal Lancet in October published a study placing the number of Iraqi deaths since the American invasion at between 8,000 and 194,000 - with the most likely number statistically being the midpoint, 98,000. Yet I've heard many Americans dismiss Iraqi civilian casualties as a mere byproduct of war.
So, what have we learned today, kids? It's okay to kill if you don't make a big production about it. At this rate, we've acquired about 200,000 eyes for 6,000 eyes (over 8,000 if you count our American Soldiers' deaths).
I'm sure God is proud of us.
To paraphrase a spoof interview of God in The Onion, "What part of 'thou shalt not kill' do you not understand?"