Meanwhile, there has been only minimal coverage of a new survey by the respected (and far-from-leftie) British polling organisation ORB that shows the death toll in Iraq has now climbed above one million. This validates the previous scientific study in October 2006, stridently rubbished by supporters of the war, which estimated the death toll as of early last year at over 650,000. In Baghdad, the most violent area polled, almost half the households questioned had lost a member to violence since the start of the war.
Then there is the often overlooked issue of refugees, with estimated numbers displaced by the war running between 3 and 5 million, half of them fleeing abroad.
"The ORB study was made public on the same day that President Bush went on national television to deliver a report on conditions in Iraq that was nothing short of delusional. With a million Iraqis dead, a million wounded, and four to five million displaced, Bush hailed the return of 'normal life' to the devastated country."
Meanwhile, as the article from which the above quote is taken points out, the Democrats, elected last year on their promises to end the war, continue to twiddle their thumbs in Congress, making them complicit in the carnage. There is a popular quotation by Claire Wolfe going the rounds that says, "America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards". I'm not so sure it's too early any more.
1 comment:
It is indeed a shame that such reports do not seem to receive due attention, despite your well justified misgivings, the possibility of there being some genuine concern over the credibility of official assessments of the situation, one would hope, even within the US media establishment.
The very fact that major profit seeking organizations, among others, with (at least in principle) a responsibility to their shareholders, would bank on the accuracy and objectivity of the agency's results speaks much for its veracity, one would normally
consider.
But anyhow, that quote is really a hoot, whatever :).
- NK (yes, it's the same one you might have encountered on Spike's blog)
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