Jousting with the Lancet: Pajamas Media Interviews Professor Gilbert Burnham
Some of you people are stupid.
His figures represent “excessive” deaths. Not deaths from IEDs, not deaths from suicide bombings, not deaths from air raids.
The numbers represent all that and more. It includes people who have died of disease, people who’ve tripped and broken their necks, Iraqis who have died of preventable medical conditions, etc etc etc.
Saddam may have killed a lot of his own people, but there was a basic infrastructure. The U.S. swept in and blew that all to hell. Now Iraq is a freakin’ war zone. Why are you all so shocked that more people are dying than ‘normal’?
According to the study, the actual figures are 650,000 +/- 300,000
The statistics provide a 95% confidence level that the “true” death toll is somewhere between ~300,000 and ~900,000 dead. 300k is just as likely as 650k, which is also as likely as 900k.
Just because y’all don’t know statistics doesn’t mean the prof is wrong. Someone with an open mind would evaluate the numbers for what they are, not for what you think they’re saying.
