115+ die in Iraq blast

[Darth Wong]

IIRC, the population of Iraq is about 20 million; some quick calculations reveal that that kind of death rate should give us ~550 dead Iraqis per year.

Yes, that makes so much sense when death tolls smaller than this don't even make the headlines any more.

Meet the right-winger's favourite debate tactic: simply lying through his teeth.

[Vympel]

You think that's fucking stupid? I still prefer the classic:

Fox News

California Roughly Same Size As Iraq

Two hundred and seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California…which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they are incurring about 1.7, including illness and accidents, each day.

Brit Hume: utter fucking twit who thinks "geographical size" is at all relevant to the issue.

[Darth Wong]

You think that's fucking stupid? I still prefer the classic:

Fox News

California Roughly Same Size As Iraq

Two hundred and seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California…which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they are incurring about 1.7, including illness and accidents, each day.

Brit Hume: utter fucking twit who thinks "geographical size" is at all relevant to the issue.

Besides, he's not even comparing Iraq to California at all. He is comparing the portion of Iraq which happens to consist of US soldiers with California. That's what, 130000 troops compared to a population of roughly 30 million?

[SirNitram]

You'll notice, of course, they only ever compare all of Iraq's death rate to these examples.

They never do it by, say, Bagdad. Has anyone here guessed why? The reason is because the vasty majority of deaths are in the capital, and it sounds alot less spiffy to use that atrocious number.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Anyone ever read the Lancet's toll of Iraqi deaths?

I dont recall the exact number but, IIRC, it was between 100 and 200 thousand. That's deaths, not included wounded.

[Darth Wong]

Anyone ever read the Lancet's toll of Iraqi deaths?

I dont recall the exact number but, IIRC, it was between 100 and 200 thousand. That's deaths, not included wounded.

Actually, I think it was more like 600,000. That wouldn't surprise me; the Americans have suffered roughly 3k deaths and 40k wounded IIRC. The idea that Iraq casualties would be no greater than US soldier casualties despite being far easier targets is totally absurd, and the "Iraq Body Count" idiots can take their 30k estimate and shove it up their well-greased assholes, there to reside alongside George W. Bush's cumload. Their method explicitly employs every conceivable technique for reducing the estimate. They don't even hide it, yet they act as though this is the only reasonable way to come up with an estimate and they attacked the Lancet study for not doing likewise.

[The Spartan]

Oh, but it gets even better. Even if we take the lower limit from IBC (currently capped between 52-53K), we still end up with a number that when averaged over the time of occupation, is very close to Hussein's average death toll over his entire reign. Which was just over 14k a year.

Take the Iraqi Ministry of Healths number of 150k and we, obviously, triple it.

If we go with the 650k figure from the Lancet, well, we're responsible for more deaths in about 3.75 years than all of Hussein's murders (500k I understand) throughout his 35 years in charge.

So we're at least as bad as Hussein and in actuality, far worse. Comforting isn't?

I won't bother mocking the Republitard response to all of this. That ridiculous song mocks itself just fine.

[RedImperator]

Of course, to really understand what the casualty figures mean, you have to take into account Iraq's population is one-fifteenth that of the United States. So multiply the numbers by fifteen to get an idea what kind of damage that society is actually taking.

If you accept Iraq Body Count as an absolute lower limit, that's the equivalent of the United States losing 795,000 people in three years. That's 725 people per day, or 33,350 people in 46 days. Why 46 days? Because the DC snipers, who made the entire DC metro area shit its pants, killed twelve people in the same span of time.

Go with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, and the American equivalent is 2.25 million people in three years.

Go with Lancet's numbers and that's nine million people in three years.

[K. A. Pital]

Go with Lancet's numbers and that's nine million people in three years.

Ouch. Yeah, gives a perspective of scale, indeed.

[GeneralTacticus]

IIRC, the population of Iraq is about 20 million; some quick calculations reveal that that kind of death rate should give us ~550 dead Iraqis per year.

Yes, that makes so much sense when death tolls smaller than this don't even make the headlines any more.

Meet the right-winger's favourite debate tactic: simply lying through his teeth.

I've encountered it before, but the sheer brazeness of it still throws me sometimes. Which, I suppose, is why they seem to get away with it.