Comments on Casualty Monitor: Iraqi Casualty Monitor: One million deaths since t...

AN IRAQI DEATHI read about a man who diedIn Baghda...

2007-10-26T17:04:39.413+01:00

AN IRAQI DEATH

I read about a man who died
In Baghdad--it is not, these days,
Unusual: his bereft friends tried
To counteract his death with praise.

His was a great gentility,
A generous and caring soul,
All commentators did agree,
Now left in each one´s heart a hole.

A young man, so his future held
Much promise--also that his goodness
Would positively change the world,
As needs his sort in times of rudeness.

Alas, the daily life these days
Is difficult within the city;
His killers´ motivation´s maze
Complex; death´s manner most unpretty.

He was an innocent, and sweet,
Agreed upon by all accounts,
And yet a heinous death did meet--
Remembered life a thing for words.

Remember, if not all serene
A basic safety there obtained
For citizens, the streets were clean,
That scummy have become blood-stained.

All we know, at the outskirts, is
The life before was not so painful,
Before they came--was not like this--
With their confusion, proud, disdainful:

Let us not call it a tableau
Of bliss idyllic and romance,
Yet it was better even so
Before came the Americans.

--i.m. small

Menshevik, thanks for the reference to the work by...

2007-08-13T11:26:39.277+01:00

Menshevik, thanks for the reference to the work by Kane. I will have a good gander. This has not been published yet, right? Do you know if s/he plans to publish and when and where?

Agree that whichever data source and fatality estimate you go with Iraq is a humanitarian catastrophe, so to some extent it dosn't matter which people chose. However, with reference to two things I think the methodology and the order of magnitude of the estimate is important.

Firstly, as someone working in the area of epidemiology and emergencies I have a personal interest in trying to promote best practice and get as close to the 'truth' as possible. Good humanitarian responses require good assessments. Secondly, with reference to the future political and legal accountability of those responsible for initiation of the conflict, the magnitude of the impact has relevance.

and that would be 2,740 on avg. every day of the w...

2007-08-12T04:39:02.106+01:00

and that would be 2,740 on avg. every day of the war, a humongous figure, no?

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/upload/2007/07/Kan...

2007-08-11T20:52:11.308+01:00

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/upload/2007/07/KaneLancet.pdf
is a new study which disputes the Lancet published work. Iraq Body Count has a muchh lower (if still atrocious set of numbers), http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended/3.6.2.php